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| Demo Over Demolition |
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| Posted on: 2007-Feb-27 GNA |
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Residents of Nmai Djorn or North Ashaley Botwe, near Accra, yesterday, took to the street to protest against a private developer who had come with bulldozers to demolish their buildings.
The residents, who started demonstrating around 3am, accused the private developer, Presim Ltd, an Estate Developer, of using fictitious documents, the police and the judiciary to intimidate them to take over what was rightfully theirs.
The residents, numbering about 200, abandoned all activities, blocked all access roads to the area and burnt tyres to prevent any vehicle from leaving or coming to the area when they got wind of the intended demolition exercise,.
The demonstration was so intense that the timely intervention of the Adenta District Police Commander, Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Yao Tettegah and the Member of Parliament for Adenta, Hon. Opare Hammond, averted the situation in which the residents threatened to burn down some property of Presim Ltd.
Addressing the residents, Hon. Hammond said he was surprised to hear that the Estate Developer had mobilised resources to demolish the buildings since, according to him, the matter was pending before an Accra High Court.
He said it was mischievous on the part of Presim Ltd. to decide to go against the injunction imposed by the court, restraining all parties undertaking any project on the disputed land.
Hon. Hammond promised that as long as the matter was before the court, he would do everything within his means to see the logical and legal conclusion of the matter.
“As far as I’m concerned, we have gotten to a point where Presim cannot come back on the land to come and do any demolishing, because right now there is an injunction on the land and I’ve always assured them that even if Presim finally becomes the rightful owners, we would seek an amicable settlement to the matter and won’t go ahead to demolish anybody’s structure,” he stated.
Hon. Hammond promised to liaise with the Police Commander to ensure police regular patrol of the place to ensure nobody sprang a surprise on them.
He therefore urged them to remove all road blocks to make for movement easy for vehicles.
DSP Tettegah also assured them of protection from the police.
According to Mr. Tettegah, he would inform the Greater Accra Regional Commander so that in case of any intended demolishing exercise within his jurisdiction, he (Tettehgah) should be informed.
He however warned them not to take the law into their own hands and create chaos since the law was not a respecter of persons.
Chairman of the residents’ association, Nii Adotey Saka said they bought the land from the chief of Nmai Djorn, Nii Atta Sowah and had been living there for many years until Management of Presim, who were said to be Togolese and Camerounean nationals, began accusing them of trespassing on their property.
He alleged that Presim had carried out a similar demolishing exercise last year with the assistance of some police personnel, at a time when they had all gone to work.
According to Nii Saka the chief, Nii Sowah had denied ever selling any land to Presim, alleging therefore that whatever documents they had were fake.
“They approached him for some lands but at that time there was a court case between Ashaley Botwe and Nmai Djorn and so they asked them to wait and gave them a temporary document and collected some money from them,” Nii Saka alleged.
He stated also that “Somehow, Presim managed to register the document they (chiefs) gave them at the Lands Title at a point in time where no documents were said to have been registered” at the Lands Title.
Nii Saka said the Chief was not happy with the development and issued a writ of summons to Presim to the effect that the document they had was fake.
The disputed land is about 99 acres, with a population of about 1000, mostly made up of people of both the middle and lower income groups.
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