Ho, Jan 22, GNA – Oswald Kwami Mortey, a 99-year old man, resident in Ho-Hliha in the Volta Region, on Tuesday asked the National Reconciliation Commission (NRC), at its sitting in Ho, to assist him get compensation for his land near the Volta Barracks, which was seized and turned into a shooting range near the Volta Barracks, during the administration of General Kutu Acheampong.
Mr Mortey whose leg was amputated, said though he would be 100 years old on September 1, this year, he looked forward to receiving the compensation and acquiring a decent house to live in because he has many more years to live.
When asked how he lost his leg, Mr Mortey said because of his hard work, a group of people beat him up so badly and broke his leg resulting in the amputation.
Mr Mortey said he was a successful farmer in the 1970s, during which time he had many cash crops and foodstuff farms on his ancestral land at Agbogbome, near the Volta Barracks on which he built a house and lived with his family.
He said one day, during the late General Acheampong’s regime, some soldiers visited him and informed him that his land was going to be acquired for use as a shooting range and that he would be allowed to stay on the land for some time.
Mr Mortey said later some soldiers counted his cash and food crops and made a plan of the land.
He said later another group of soldiers destroyed everything on the land and asked him to vacate it because government had paid compensation to him.
Mr Mortey said he sent the issue to the High Court in Ho to get the government to pay him 18 million cedis as compensation, but he did not pursue the matter further.
Lieutenant-General Erskine, a member of the Commission advised Mr Mortey to allow his children to pursue the case on his behalf because of his (Mortey) old age.
The Commission member appealed to Lawyers in the region to assist Mr Mortey to pursue the case and to establish contact with the Ministry of Defence, which was working on issues of forced confiscation of land.
Mr Emmanuel Kwaku Adelayita, a porter at the Ho main lorry station, told the NRC that brutalities meted out to him and other porters by soldiers at the Volta Barracks in 1979 have made him scared of soldiers. But Uborr Dalaful Labal another NRC member told Adelayita that: “Soldiers now are very different”.
“Yes I agree but I still fear them because I don’t know what they would do to me if I get near them”, said Mr Adelayita.
Mr Adelayita said one day in 1979 a group of soldiers suddenly invaded the Ho main lorry park and rounded up all porters and whisked them into a vehicles and sent to the Volta Barracks.
He said they were beaten up severely and made to run round the Barracks while soldiers stood at vantage points and slapped the victims.
Mr Adelayita said they (porters) were also made to hold their ears, leapfrog for a long time and roll on the hot-tarred road.
He said his face become swollen and had bodily pains for three months as a result of the ordeal adding that he was unable to carry heavy objects adding that he was yet to know why he and his colleagues were maltreated.
Mr Justice K. Etrew Amuah-Sekyi, Chairman of the NRC expressed sympathy with Mr Adelayita and said such brutalities were unacceptable in a civilised society.
The Chairman said the Commission was set up to find ways of appeasing the victims of those unexplained brutalities and ensure that the development did not occur again in the future.
Source: GhanaWeb
