Kpone youth angry over alleged encroachment on cemetery lands

Dozens of Aggrieved Indigenes of Kpone, on Tuesday, devised plan ‘B’ to hold a presser the Divisional Police Command had ordered them to call off until a proper notice was served them (Police).

The youth converged at the old Kpone lorry station on Tuesday morning to vent their anger at their Traditional Council and Municipal Assembly for rezoning and later selling a larger part of their traditional cemetery lands to developers.

As the youth leaders, donning red arm and wrist bands and using the public address system to invite more of the indigenes to the venue to sensitise them about the situation at the cemetery, few armed police personnel in three police vehicles, with registration numbers GP 297 (Toyota Landcruiser pickup), GP 4920 (Toyota Corolla) and GP 3979 (Toyota Tundra) also pulled up.

The leader of the police personnel headed straight to the leadership of the organisers to instruct them to call off the press conference and follow due process by officially notifying the Division in writing, five days prior to the day’s public assembly.

The leadership of the youth, however, explained that they had not met to stage a demonstration but rather hold a press conference, but the police insisted that the youth respect the Public Order Act.

Realising that the prolonged meeting with the police on the matter could spark some kerfuffle, especially as the numbers of the youth gradually swelled up, the leadership snubbed the police and zoomed to the cemetery in their numbers, where James Sutherland Atiapa, the Secretary of the Aggrieved Indigenes of Kpone, addressed the media.

They converged at the public cemetery, which had almost been turned into a dumping site to, first and foremost, show the media how the assembly had kept the burial ground unkempt and bushy, despite the revenue they collect before burial.

James Atiapa said the Kpone Traditional Stool cemetery measures 39 acres but illegal selling and encroachment had reduced it to only about nine acres. He mentioned Sentuo Ceramics as the company that had heavily encroached upon their cemetery.

“Part of the cemetery land is also being used as stockpile by the same Sentuo Ceramics. The entire cemetery frontage, as we speak, has been encroached by illegal occupants.

“The site for the royal cemetery has not been spared by these illegal occupants and what saddens us is that all these developers have no release letters from the Tema Development Corporation (TDC) to develop the said plots of land they occupy,” James Atiapa explained.

What infuriated the youth the more, was a letter one of them pulled out, which the Municipal Chief Executive, Solomon Appiah, was alleged to have written to the TDC to regularise and rezone the portions of the cemetery land to the developers.

Charged by the sight of the letter, James Atiapa said: “What is the interest of the MCE in these matters? We are surprised that he, as an indigene of Kpone, would stab us in the back. About 85 percent of the cemetery land has been taken away from us illegally, so if we want to bury our beloved departed ones we will have to go elsewhere to pay about GHc4,000 for a burial space. Look, this greed and selfish interest would no longer be tolerated by the people of Kpone.

“We are by this press conference, here at the cemetery, sending a strong signal to our MCE and all who are involved to furnish us with full detail on the encroached cemetery land or face the wrath of the indigenes,” he fumed.

He advised the encroachers to vacate the cemetery as soon as possible, “because what we will do this time, when we rise, will be bigger and worse than what we did a few years ago when we embarked on demonstration to express our displeasure over similar concerns.”

He, on behalf of the youth, demanded the Traditional Council to furnish them with any agreement whatsoever made between them and any of the encroachers, “because when we strike, we are going to go all out and by then, it’ll have been too late to call us to order.”

The Chronicle later followed up at the Traditional Council to hear their response, but there was nobody at the office to speak to.

When The Chronicle called Solomon Appiah on the telephone on the matter, he said he could not speak about it because he was not privy to the press conference by the Aggrieved Indigenes of Kpone.

He went on to say that even if he would speak about the issue, he would have to see and read any press statement by the organisers.

Later when the paper agreed to meet him with a copy of the statement, he sharply said that he was not at the office, adding that he would be busy doing some tour with the Road Minister and attend meetings in Accra from Tuesday to Friday.

But in a telephone interview with one of the electronic media houses later, Solomon Appiah, the MCE, said he wrote to the TDC to regularise and rezone the municipal cemetery, but not the traditional cemetery for private developers.

In his view, the youth had no business in what the assembly did with its part of the cemetery land especially when what the assembly released the land for would rake in revenue for developmental projects.

He said the assembly ordered the Sentuo Ceramics to use part of the cemetery land for stockpiling “and that is part of the acquisition land for the company. In fact, let me tell you that that company existed before I became the MCE. The youth have no case in my view, because their traditional cemetery land is still intact.”

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