Catholic Bishops back Minority’s call for more stringent probe into Ejura killings

The Ghana Catholic Bishops Conference (GCBC) has repeated a position by the Minority in Parliament for a more independent and stringent investigation into the fatal Ejura chaos.

Two days ago, clashes between protestors and security personnel at Ejura in the Ashanti Region led to the death of civilians and severe injuries of four others.

Viral videos show a soldier aiming into the crowd and shooting.

It is not clear if that resulted in the two deaths, However, eyewitnesses have told the media that the military personnel shot unarmed civilians with live bullets.

READ ALSO: Akufo-Addo orders public inquiry into Ejura chaos

Many have condemned the security personnel for their heavy-handedness.

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo on Wednesday, June 30, 2021, instructed the Interior Minister, Ambrose Dery, to begin an immediate public inquiry into the Ejura incidents.

“The Interior Minister is to provide a detailed report from the Inquiry, with recommendations for appropriate action, within ten days, i.e. by July 9th 2021, to the President,” said the statement issued by Acting Director of Communications at the Presidency, Eugene Arhin.

However, the Minority said a public inquiry will not get to the bottom of the killings.

According to the Minority, the state security agencies are complicit in the killings and hence cannot probe the issue objectively.

The Minority legislators say a Commission of Inquiry and not a Public Inquiry is the way to go.

This position seems to resonate with the Catholic Bishops in Ghana, who have also condemned the killings.

President of the Ghana Catholic Bishop Conference, Most Reverend Philp Naameh, told Joy News that these kinds of directives hardly yield good results.

“This is not the way to go because we are used to such kind of directives which do not yield to anything, we need a kind of sanction or punishment which will...be a lesson to all others, but to make a loose directive isn’t enough,” he said about the President’s directive for a public inquiry. 

He added: “We are expecting the National Security to make a statement to really condemn the unprofessional behaviour of those soldiers as we have stated in our statement who took a posture of aiming, actually shooting and killing innocent civilians, I think this is not anything we expect from our army. We expect that soldiers who misbehave to be brought to book, we don’t want anything actually less than dismissing soldiers who so behave. That is the punishment we are expecting but not just any kind of punishment but dismissing them from the security forces because that wasn’t what they were trained to do.”

On Tuesday, June 29, Ejura youth took to the streets to protest a mob attack and subsequent death of a social media activist, Ibrahim Kaaka Mohammed, who is a known affiliate of the #FixTheCountry and Economic Freedom Fighters pressure groups.

The youth say authorities failed to protect Kaaka, as he is popularly known, because he had reported threats made on his life due to his activism prior to the assault on him.

They blocked roads and burned tyres, compelling security authorities to dispatch a team of military and police personnel to maintain order.

A soldier is captured in a viral video squatting and taking aim at a protestor before firing – shortly after arriving at the scene of the protest.

Four other protesters have also sustained gunshot injuries.

Kaaka was critical of the government’s seeming neglect of the social and infrastructural needs of his community.

He will typically make short videos to depict deplorable roads, poor drainage systems among other issues and post them on his Facebook page.