The Chief of Kokrobite in the Ga South Municipality of the Greater Accra Region, Nii Offei lII, has bemoaned the constant harassments and attacks meted out to innocent land developers, residents and building construction workers in the area by weapon-wielding land-guards on the blindside of the police.

According to the chief, who is also a victim of the land-guard attacks, land developers and their workers who go to their sites to work are often severely beaten by these ferocious land-guards.

Nii Ofei III made this worrying observation while speaking to journalists after sprinkling kpokpoi (a local Ga delicacy) on the streets of Kokrobite to mark this year’s Homowo festival.

He noted that these ‘notorious’ land-guards, numbering about twenty (20), often seen around various building sites within the Kokrobite enclave, destroy working materials including cement bags and building blocks.

The chief indicated that they [the land-guards] sometimes set ablaze structures and pull down buildings that were at the lintel level.

The land-guards, the chief of Kokrobite continued, also take monies and mobile phones belonging to land developers and their workers at the various sites.

“These land-guards who are sponsored by some known individuals whose names are withheld) for now, sometimes take away working tools including wheelbarrows, head pans, shovels amidst the destruction of bags of cement.

…They [the land- guards] further set building structures ablaze and destroy footings of developers as well as building blocks on sites,” Nii Ofei III said.

He also told journalists that some of the victims who are attacked sustain varied degrees of injuries as a result of the beatings they receive in the hands of the land-guards.

Nii Ofei III further lamented that he has been attacked on three occasions at his millennium city residence, adding that when he reported the matter, the police paid deaf ears to his complaints.

“My life is in danger, and this is my worry. Because what baffles me is the unprofessional behaviour of the police officers. The police would be called to arrest a citizen because he/she owes a neighbour, but when there is a theft and it is reported, they refuse to come,” he said.

He accused the station officer at Kokrobite police station and his men of becoming ‘paramount chiefs’ who were meddling in chieftaincy affairs instead of being peace-maintaining officers.

According to him, they condone with the land-guards and collect so-called “digging fees” from landowners.

To this end, Nii Ofei III called on the Inspector General of Police (IGP), David Asante-Appeatu, to clamp down on these land-guards to safeguard lives of residents and land developers in the area.