Reports reaching Starr News indicate that the Paramount Chief of Chiana, Pe Ditundini Adiali Ayagitam III, has vandalised a restaurant amid reported threats to also set ablaze owners of the eatery.

The incident, according to eyewitnesses, happened around 9:00pm Thursday after some customers had come to blows at Mango Base, as the restaurant, which is located at Chiana in the Kassena-Nankana West District of the Upper East Region, is called.

The chief, who is also the Vice President of the Upper East Regional House of Chiefs and whose palace is not too far from the scene of the fight, stormed the restaurant and allegedly smashed up everything he found there, whilst the chief purportedly was using a stick clasped in his right hand to break every bottle and glass cup he could find, the other hand was also busy punching and slapping customers everywhere in a “Van Damme style” out of their seats as he broke the empty chairs along.

“The chief himself came here, saying we were distracting him as he was relaxing. He destroyed everything. He threatened to beat all of us. We all had to run away for our lives. He beat all those who came to buy drinks with their own money. He beat all of them; destroyed all our chairs; went in there, trying to destroy everything. He broke about twenty chairs,” a shareholder at the restaurant (name withheld for security reasons) told Starr News, sobbing on the telephone.

Chief closes down restaurant

Owners of the restaurant, who say it would be difficult to recover from the depth of havoc the chief is said to have wrecked on their property, are wailing even louder.

The chief, according to the devastated vendors, also has, in the aftermath of the alleged assault and damage, barked orders on them to stop operating with immediate effect.

“Today, he called us to the palace and told us not to sell anything here. Now the chairs, we can’t even buy them. He even threatened us that if we sell, he will come and burn down the whole place and burn us in addition even if we are asleep,” an employee of the restaurant groaned in an interview.

Police condemn chief’s assault

When Starr News contacted the chief for his side of the story, he denied the allegations, saying: “It’s not true. Tell the owner of the [restaurant] to see me.”

But the police have confirmed and condemned the attack, saying the spectacle was unsightly of a supreme royal.

“The palace is just about 500 metres from the restaurant. Yesterday, he went there, caused damage to things, about 20 chairs destroyed. There are people who are ready to give evidence that he slapped them, he beat them. You (chief) called us (police) that you want to close down the bar and that if they joke you would pour petrol on it and burn the whole place. Today, they prepared food to sell. You said they shouldn’t sell. Should they throw the food away? I have informed my commander about it,” a senior police officer, who does not want his name mentioned and who sounds very frustrated at the development, told Starr News from Chiana on the telephone.

Chaos beckons as chief threatens to incite his “people”

The chief, Starr News has also learnt, is also pushing the police to close down the restaurant or have him incite his people to do it themselves.

The Kassena-Nankana Municipal Police Commander, DSP Abdulai Amadu Alichewu, who also oversees Chiana, is reported to have sent a message to the chief that the power to close down the restaurant lies within the arms of the court and not the police.

“The chief has issued threatening words that if we don’t take any action, he would incite his people to do whatever they would do, [that] he has got followers, he is for his town. These are some of the things he said. Our commander asked us to go and inform him that we the police cannot close down the bar until the court orders. We sent police officers there but they came back saying they didn’t meet him,” a source from the police service at Chiana told Starr News.

Efforts to reach the police commander for more details, particularly on security arrangements following the alleged threats from the chief, have been unsuccessful as he did not answer his telephone calls before filing this report. The immediate future of the development looks uncertain as the troubled spot remains shaky.