A Press Statement By The Youth Of VEA

A Press Statement By The Youth Of VEA ON THE OCCASION OF THE BRUTISH MURDER OF MR. AZAARE ANIAH, A FINAL YEAR STUDENT OF THE UNIVERSITY OF EDUCATION, WINNEBA

“We Hold Upper East Regional Commander of Police, ACP Bright Oduro, Responsible for the Murder of the Azaare Aniah”

We the youth and people of the Vea Community in the Bongo District of the Upper East Region wish to bring to the information of the Regional Security Council, the national Security and the presidency, the unlawful and planned exploitation of our inalienable property and the subsequent brutish shooting and killing of Azaare Aniah, a cherished and beloved son of the community and final year student of the University of the University Education, Winneba. Though shocking we feel disappointed to inform you that the unfolding of certain events have compelled us to believe that the Upper East Regional Police Commander is an effective contributor to the demise of the late Azaare Aniah which occurred on 6th February, 2013. We are aware that the chairman of the RESEC is currently too busy as a result of his new appointment we therefore suspect that the regional police commander cashed in on that circumstance to steer the council to his personal advantage. If he the commander doubts our suspicion we challenge him to answer the following questions:
1. Why did he refuse to allow the Regional Crime Officer, who had begun investigations into the murder of Mr. Gideon Azaare, to take part in a meeting that took place in his office between his outfit and the Vea Youth on February 7th, 2013, a day after the brutish killing of our own?
2. He should also tell us why he went further to bar the Regional Crime Officer from all matters relating to the investigation of the shooting case?
3. Why has he caused the immediate transfer of the Regional Crime Officer out of the region at a time such a terrible act by the police is to be investigated?
4. Why did the Bongo District Commander, whom he directed to oversee the operation in Vea deny being present at and indeed policing the operation which culminated in the shooting and killing of an innocent young man?
We are clear in our minds that ACP Bright Oduro, is doing everything under the sun to cover up this brutish murder and to portray the people of Vea as a people who are against development.
In view of the mistrust created by the Regional Commander of the police we are calling on the Presidency to as a matter of urgency and in the interest of justice and fairness, exclude Mr. Oduro, the regional police commander from all matters relating to the dam saga and the investigation of the shooting case in particular.
Gentlemen and ladies of the media, we are also baffled and shocked by the fact that in spite of the deliberate killing of our beloved son, brother and husband, our plea to the RESEC to discontinue work at the disputed site has fallen on death ears. Respected members of the media, the recalcitrance exhibited by the RESEG to us is not only a sign of lack of respect for the people but a clear indication that some if not all of them have interest in the matter. We also have a strong conviction in view of the aforementioned facts and their callous indifference to our plea, that the shooting and killing of the late Azaare Aniah took place under superior orders rather than professional incompetence as some of them want us to believe.
Having no confidence in the RESEC especially with the presence of the regional commander, we wish to call for the reconstitution of a fresh but neutral investigating team that will ensure justice.
The Genesis
Gentlemen and women of the Media, this press statement is also intended to give Ghanaians a clearer picture of the issues concerning the Vea Rocks/Dam Project Saga so that they can make judgments and contributions to the issues based on well informed positions. The Statement therefore presents the genesis of the issues involved and their consequences on not only the people of Vea but the entire Nation as a whole as this has a very high potential of costing the nation huge sums of her already limited resources to seek to prevent created conflicts in Vea for the purposes of satisfying individual selfish interest in the name of development.
The Vea Dam is located in the Bongo District of the Upper East Region. This Dam was funded by the governmentand constructed in 1965 by a Company called Taylor Woodrow. The Dam has an embankment which protects the water from spilling over and needs to be periodically maintained and preserved for the purposes of irrigation and supply of drinking water to the residents in Bolgatanga and surrounding towns of the Upper East Region.
The Government of Ghana took a commendable initiative to award contract for the re-enforcement of the Dam embankment which is being executed by a contractor known as Eunitack Limited. This contractor has been on the Dam site for well over one year without any visiblesign of work taking place. The Media came out in the latter part of 2012 to criticize the contractor for no work done. Soon after this criticism the contractor and his cronies are reported to have been on air and newspapers blaming the Vea ‘Tindana’ for not allowing him to blast and use some particular rocks in Vea for the project. The Vea ‘Tindana’ and his family members on hearing and reading this adverse reports purportedly coming from the contractor and his cronies came out with a press statement to rubbish the misinformation and claimsof the contractor and to present the true picture to the good people of Ghana so that they may have a better understanding of the issues so as to enable them make informed contributions and judgments based on well informed positions.
In this press statement, the Vea Tindana and his family stated in unequivocal terms their appreciation to the government of Ghana for the good initiative taken to maintain and preserve the Vea Dam to ensure the sustenance of the benefits of the Dam to the people of the Upper East Region. What the Tindama and indeed any person or body does not understand is the insistence of the contractor to blast those particular rocks which are sacred as explained by the Tindama. The contractor was told that those rocks are their shrines they worship and the gods have indicated to them that the lives of the Vea people are kept and protected in those rocks and so allowing the blasting of those rocks will bring about series of deaths in Vea. The Vea people believe in their shrine and do have the constitutional right to preserve and worship their shrine.
APPRECIATION OF GOVERNMENT EFFORT
The Tindamas, being appreciative of the government efforts to re-enforce the Dam embankment, provided alternative rocks to the contractor for the project. Besides those alternatives rocks there are several other rocks surrounding the Dam including a Quarry not far from the Dam which the contractor can use for the project.
The question one will obviously ask is why is the contractor so interested in blasting the shrine rocks that will obviously lead to conflicts in the area while he can safely use the alternative rocks for the same purpose? Your guess here will be as good as mine. In any case the contractor, my media friends, is a business man who is executing the contract for profit for his personal betterment and we do not understand why any community is duty-bound to provide material for the execution of his business. We are surprised that rather than compelling the contractor to do whatever he can to execute the project within the timeline given, RESEG is rather empowering a private business man to exploit and or appropriate the property and as well as destroy the cultural and religious antiquities of a poor community like Vea whose members are peaceful and law abiding.There seems to be some special value in those rocks which appears to be that of diamond as this is purported to have been aired some time back and the Geological Department in the Upper East Region may attest to this fact. The reasons for the contractor and his cronies insistence on blasting those particular rocks clearly therefore, are the selfish individual benefits that they stand to get and not for the re-enforcement of the Dam embankment which will inure to the benefits of the people of the Upper East Region.
A COURT INJUNCTION PENDING
As a result of the continuous peddling of misinformation by the contractor to the people of Ghana on the issue, the Tindama filed an injunction at the Bolgatanga High court seeking to restrain the contractor from going ahead to blast the rocks for which the contractor and the Vea chief who is his collaborator were duly served notice of the injunction by the court to be decided on Monday February 11, 2013.
Despite this notice the contractor in collaboration with the Vea chief went ahead to blast the rocks with the support of the police under the command of the Bongo District police commander.
The people of Vea drew the attention of the police to the injunction by serving them with a copy of the court document yet the police went ahead to support the contractor and his workers to blast the rocks.
The people of Vea then went there to peacefully protest for the protection of their shrine and the police brutalized and short one of them by name Mr. Azaare Ania Gideon a final year student of the University of Education, Winneba dead with life bullet and arrested five of the people and detained them in the police cells.
If the people of Vea were protecting their property, what property were the police protecting? The land in question on which the rocks lie has neither been acquired by the government nor by the contractor. So what legitimate right does the police and/or the contractor has over the land and for that matter the rocks? In the Upper East Area in particular the Traditional Head is the custodian of land. The Traditional Head of the Vea Community is the Tindana (‘Tinga’ meaning land and ‘dana’ meaning owner) ‘Tindana’ therefore means land owner. The chief of Vea therefore, has no business when it comes to land issues. He could be consulted if the ‘Tindana’ in the spirit of unity and mutual co-existence deem it necessary. The land on which the chief is resident is provided by the ‘Tindana’ so how can the chief now turn round to appropriate the land?
The police and the contractor may succeed in blasting the land because they are using weapons which give them power over the people but what the police must know is that they are showing seeds for conflicts between the people of Vea and their chief which has a very high tendency of escalating into sectional community war. This will ultimately result in the government sending troops and peace council to mediate at the expense of the tax payer for no justifiable reason.
As at the time of putting together this statement the youth of Vea were wild over the death of their brother and it appears difficult stopping them. These are signs of perpetual conflicts in the VeaCommunity.
The socio-cultural underpinnings
Recognizing the strong link between culture and religion and that of development, the 1992 constitution of Ghana firmly gives protection to the right to practice of religion and culture which cannot even be amended by Parliament.
The people of Vea have the right under the 1992 constitution to enjoy, practice, profess, maintain and promote their culture, tradition and religion in as much as our beliefs and practices are not in contravention of the provisions of the constitution of the republic of Ghana.
Dear friends of the media can the RESEG tell us where on this globe the religio-cultural beliefs of any group of people has been entirely divorced from development endeavors? During the early days of post-independence period, the people of Cape Coast legitimately and peacefully refused to relocate to OLA Township to make way for a recreational project on a land which served as home for their community shrine.In the early 19th century the people of the Molbila family peacefully and successfully resisted the colonial government attempt to extract rock from a section of the Tengzuk rocks which houses the popular Tenzuk shrines. We do not understand why in our case our people can have their culture and religion forcefully denigrated with impunity. Also, as natural citizens of Ghana we feel peeved, discriminated and denigrated that a private business man with bucking from the RESEG has forcefully and compulsorily taken possession of what legally belongs to us under the pretext of developing Ghana.
The community in spite of having lost their dear son has continued to remain civil, calm and composed thus evidencing their peaceful nature. We demand that all the police officers who were on operation at the site during which the deadly shooting took place be arraigned for identification by eye witnesses from the community. We strongly believe that if the suspect is identified truth and justice will prevail.
We commend our people and call on them to continue to exercise maximum restraint and remainas prominent members of the community are working tirelessly to bring peace and progress to the community and the region as a whole.
Our profound gratitude to the President
Ladies and Gentlemen of the media, we want to use this opportunity to express our profound gratitude to His Excellency, President John Mahama, for nominating one of own, Dr. NsohAvea as minister designate for the Upper East Region. We have no doubt that Dr. Avea has the relevant skills and competencies as well asthe character needed to propel the region to higher levels of development. We are confident that Dr. Avea, being an indigene will do everything possible in his capacity as the Regional Minister to settle this problem once and for all.
VEA COMMUNITY NOT SELFISH
We wish to use this medium to state clearly and to disabuse the notion that the youth and people of Vea are not against the protection of the dam and for that matter the development of Ghana. The potable water that is being enjoyed by the Bolgatanga township and its sub-urban was made possible through the Sacrifice of the people of Vea. As we address you now the Vea community is plagued with many misfortunes. Bilharzia, elephantiasis, malaria, dental fluorosis and just to mention a few, are endemic within the area just because of the presence of the water body in the area. It will interest you to know that Vea community has lived as an island: cut off from its neighbors for over four decades because of the dam. It will also interest you to know that even though water is pumped from the dam for use by people several miles away, the people of Vea continue to drink water from dugouts.

We are indeed grateful to the President and promise him our continued loyalty.

Thank you