Following the arrest of 72 suspected armed robbers in Accra in recent months, the Greater Accra Regional Police Command is urging all petrol filling stations to re-introduce the 24-hour service. The police are prepared to offer some level of protection to interested stations.

Filling stations stopped the all-night service, after a series of violent attacks, some of which ended up in fatalities. But, after almost three years of denying motorists access to fuel after 10:30pm, confidence is growing among both fuel retailers and the police that it is time to free the trade from the fear of armed robbers.

“We are now asking all filling stations to open all night. We feel armed robbers should not win and we are doing enough to send the robbers on the retreat,” said a senior detective at the Regional Police Headquarters in Accra.

“It is wonderful news,” says Ernest Jonah, proprietor of Mobil Filling Station near ECG, Accra. “The early shut severely affected our business. It looks like the police are really winning the war against robberies.”

A medical doctor said “it will be of great help. It can frustrate even attending to emergencies in the night when you don’t have enough fuel in the tank. Great let go on and allow them to operate throughout the night.

It is however not clear if the police would ask retailers to contribute towards police protection. The habit in other countries where filling stations are fitted with CCTV cameras and bullet proof glass screens between the cashier and the buyer is yet to make it to these shores.