Ghana: Security probe cache of arms

The Government of Ghana has tasked the various security agencies to conduct thorough investigations into the circumstances under which a cache of arms was found buried at Akweteyman, a suburb of Accra.

Consequently, the Criminal Investigations Department of the Ghana Police Service, the Bureau of National Investigations, and the intelligence unit of the Ghana Armed Forces have began prying into how the ammunition, said to have been buried in the ground for the past 30 years, came to be located right in the centre of Accra, without the security services knowing about it.

The ammunitions were discovered by accident late Friday, when workers of a construction firm working on a road rehabilitation were digging a trench to lay a culvert. The workers first discovered five rusty pistols buried in the ground. Their suspicion for more discoveries heightened and they, therefore, decided to dig further, resulting in the finding of a sack containing pistols and other weapons.

They called in the police who immediately arrived on the scene to cart the weapons away. “After the police had examined the items, they realised that parts of the weapons were missing, and, therefore, decided to come back to the scene to search the area more intensively,” our sister paper, The Chronicle on Saturday reported.

The police, The Chronicle on Saturday noted, uncovered two more sacks full of pistols, which they took away to the regional headquarters in Accra.

Reacting to the arms find, the government issued a press release through the Ministry of Information at the week-end.

Signed by Deputy Minister of Information, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, the statement described the weapons discovery as “relatively small quantities of stripped and corroded parts of arms and ammunition.” The government suspects the ammunitions “to have been buried in the area in the late 1970s.” So far, no arrest has been made, but the government said the owner of the land, suspected to be a former military personnel, has been invited to help in the investigation.

At the time of going to press last night, the name of the landlord of the house where the cache of arms were found was not known, but the Acting Public Affairs Director of the Ghana Police Service, DSP Cephas Arthur, when contacted on his mobile handset, said a proper briefing on the issue would be made today.

Security experts The Chronicle talked to opined that if the government suspects that the arms were buried in the 1970s, then it could be linked to the junior and non-commissioned officers revolt of June 1979, when arms and ammunitions were released by some military officers without lawful authority.