Banda Ahenkro: Schools, clinics shutdown after ‘xenophobic’ threat

Information available to Onua FM from Banda Ahenkro suggests that all the schools in the area have been closed down on the orders of the Ghana Education Service. The decision comes on the heels of a threatening statement being circulated by some unknown faces planning attacks on government workers who are not indigenes of the area. The Headteacher of Roman Catholic JHS, Jones Agyeman, told Onua FM’s morning show ‘Yen Nsem Pa’ that “the schools have been shutdown indefinitely until our superiors ask us to go back”. It would be recalled that some faceless indigenes of Banda Ahenkro warned they will attack persons they considered ‘strangers’, accusing them of taking over all the available works in the area. The police have asked people to leave the town, temporarily for their own safety whilst they smoke out the people behind the threatening notices. Meanwhile Jones Agyemang has confirmed to host of Onua Fm ‘Yen Nsem Pa’ Bright Asempa that the threat has not affected only educational workers in the area but health workers as well as other civil servants. “We have left on the orders of GES and we won’t come until there is an assurance that the perpetrators are found and punished. All the teachers in the town have left, even the SHS in the town has only teachers from outside the area so they have left,” he stated. Jones Agyemang also said a meeting has been scheduled for all the GES teachers working in the area on Monday 20^th March 2017, adding that the outcome of the meeting will determine if they are going to go back to school anytime soon. When asked if it was prudent to desert the pupils, Jones Agyemang responded, “My life and that of my colleagues and their families are more important, those who are going round with that threat, have they not thought about the future of those innocent children, Asempa this is serious, all clinics have closed, so what happens if there is an emergency”. The Wenchi Divisional Commander ACP Sebastian Wemegah has assured that the Police is in charge of affairs and investigations are under way. However, he conceded that since there was no name attached to the letter, it is making it a bit difficult to trace the perpetrators but assured that “soon we will bring the case to a close, we are employing every strategy to end this” He also said information gathered so far is pointing to political machination from some unknown people in the town. To this, he said they are in talks with the opinion leaders to see how “this can be dealt with peacefully”. By Bright Dzakah |Onua FM|editors.3news.com