General News of Monday, 21 February 2011

Source: THE INDEPENDENT

Man Wanted For Death in Bawku

Information available to The Independent say, some angry youth of Bawku, of the Kusasi tribe, have declared wanted, a 21-year old footballer for allegedly causing harm to another Bawku citizen in the heat of the Bawku conflict. Ibrahim Hudu Abdul, who is believed to have bolted to Togo, is said to have stabbed another Bawku citizen, who engaged him in a struggle at Bawku, under the pretext that, Abdul’s father, a popular Mamprusi yam farmer and a medicine man, in the heat of the conflict, killed his in-laws who were Kusasis. Narrating the incident to The Independent, Nii Amu Aryetey, a friend of Abdul, who was mistaken for Abdul at the Agbogbloshie yam market in Accra, during an invasion by some irate Bawku youth in retaliation of Abdul’s action in Bawku, said, he was mistaken for Abdul, his friend, and beaten by the Bawku youth at the Agbogbloshie market.

He told The Independent that, Ibrahim Hudu Abdul’s mother, the late Adisa Ankrah, used to sell yam in the north where she met Abdul’s father and gave birth to Abdul, but the mother died when Abdul was 12 years old He said, Abdul attended a soccer-based school in Accra, but had the burning desire to learn apart from his love for soccer, but had a rough experience one day when his teacher hit him in the head with a ruler, a development that forced him to stop schooling and which finally saw him travelling to stay at Kasoa in the Central Region.

According to Nii Amu Aryetey, both friends and relations of Abdul wanted him to continue his schooling, but he was sent to his father at Bawku at the age of 5 and had since not been there, so Abdul, upon the death of his mother, decided to go back to Bawku to look for his father in order to continue his education.

Nii Amu Aryetey told The Independent that, in May last year, Abdul traveled to Bawku and went to the market in that town to look for the yam Queen to help him locate his father, which contact eventually led to the discovery of the father’s house, but was told that, the father, a yam and medicine man of the Mamprusi stock, was killed in the Bawku conflict.

The father’s family, Aryetey said, acknowledged the fact that, their brother had a son in the Central Region, but rather grew angry upon seeing him as the father is alleged to have killed some of his in laws, who were Kusasis and married to his sisters.

After this development, the yam queen, who had accompanied Abdul to the father’s house, sensing danger, took Abdul to her house, but one day, after returning from the farm with her, they heard the news that, some angry youth were looking for him to vent their spleen on Abdul and had gone to the yam Queen’s house at Bawku as a result of the father’s role in the Bawku war to ostensibly kill him.

Upon hearing this information, the yam Queen asked Abdul to run for his life, but on his way out of Bawku, he was accosted by a motorbike rider who wanted to get hold of him, but Abdul was able to run away. But in the ensuing struggle with the motorbike rider before he bolted from Bawku, Abdul stabbed him (motorbike rider) with a knife and ran away to the Tanjuare refugee camp in Togo, Aryetey said, and added that, while in Togo, Abdul helped a Togolese whose car had a flat tyre.

He said, out of sympathy and appreciation for what he did for him, the Togolese helped Abdul to travel to Morocco after narrating his ordeal in Bawku to the Togolese.