Students exchanged boots for gun

In a front page screaming headline story, the Ghanaian Times reports that the pistol used by the two students of St Peter?s Secondary School at Kwahu-Nkwatia in the Eastern Region, who robbed a forex bureau in Kumasi, was acquired in a barter deal.

Giiving the facts as narrated by the Kumasi Railway Police who are in charge of the investigation, the Times says the students exchanged their canvas boots for the gun.

According to the Times, it has been established by the police that on the day of the robbery, the students, Frederick Kwadwo Tsinu Oteng, 18, and Obeng ~Amoako, 17, (now decease), contacted Yahaya Fuseini, a gun manufacturer at Suame Magazine in Kumasi, for a gun. Fuseini is said to have told them that he had none immediately available and that he would have to manufacture one for them.

However, after some pressure from the students, Fuseini took them to his agent, Theophilus Afriyie, who said that there was one gun left. Afriyie then gave them the gun for 20,000 cedis, but the students who did not have enough money, offered their canvas boots instead which the gun-makers accepted.

The Times says the students then returned to the Madusek Forex Bureau in Kumasi under the pretext of changing some money, but Amoako pulled out the pistol and ordered the operator to surrender all the monies in his Possession.

When the operator hesitated, Amoako is said to have hit the head of the operator with the gun butt, rendering him unconscious and bleeding profusely.

Amoako and his colleague then tied his hands and collected various currencies totalling 20 million cedis. Just as they were making their exit, a customer met them and seeing the operator in a pool of blood raised the alarm. The alarm attracted a mob who chased the students, arrested Amoako and lynched him.