Slum dwellers at Sodom and Gomorrah in Accra?s Central Business District, are up in arms against government over a demolition exercise carried out over the weekend.
The angry crowd in their hundreds comprising youth, women, men and children, are wielding placards and chanting war songs on the long stretch of road between the Central Mosque and the slum.
A heavy security force has arrived at the scene to prevent an escalation of the situation to protect lives and property. However TV3?s Kwabena Adu-Gyamfi reports that the angry crowd have chased out security personnel numbering about fifty.
Meanwhile more police officers, fire service personnel and military officers, have joined to control the massive crowd that?s turning violent, compelling the police to fire teargas.
Kwabena Adu-Gyamfi says the crowd have now massed up at the precincts of the state house demanding responses from the President, John Dramani Mahama.
Majority of the over 300,000 slum dwellers who are Muslims, said the AMA could have allowed them to complete the Ramadan fasting before carrying out the demolition, Kwabena Adu-Gyamfi added.
Some of the demonstrators are also wielding sharp objects and have pelted security personnel with stones and other objects.
The dwellers at the slum, majority of who are natives from Ghana?s three northern regions who throng the south in search of greener pastures, are unhappy with the president, a northerner himself for displacing them.
They are demanding compensation for the destruction caused to their structures and personal belongings and are also demanding that Government provides them with temporary structures until they are able to acquire permanent accommodation.
In the absence of the above, they are asking government to provide buses available for them to return to their home regions.
Some of the enlightened residents said it was against international conventions to displace people without making the necessary arrangement for them.
They are asking Government to resettle them since they are now forced to sleep in the open streets.
Officials of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly together with some security services ended the demolishing exercise on Saturday at Ghana?s biggest slum.
Hundreds of residents salvaged their belongings as they watched the destruction take place.
The destruction comes on the heels of recent rains that resulted in severe flooding, which has brought in its wake the need for city authorities to de-silt choked gutters.
The destruction comes on the heels of recent rains that resulted in severe flooding, which has brought in its wake the need for city authorities to de-silt choked gutters.
This has been cited as one of the reasons for the demolition of the illegal structures where it was also discovered that electricity had been illegally connected.
Affected residents say they were not given ample notice, but Government has denied the claim. Government says a place had been allocated to the residents at Amasaman but they have refused to relocate with the excuse that their livelihood centers around Sodom and Gomorrah.
According to the Greater Accra Regional Minister, Nii Afotey-Agbo, some of the illegal dwellers had gotten sawdust to fill the Lagoon to the extent that they are now putting up concrete structures and not wooden structures, hence the need for de-silting.
Source: Ebenezer Afanyi Dadzie/tv3network.com
