According to the security expert, the news of the arms being originally destined for Niger is “diversionary”.
The weapons are made up of 11 AK47, 10 G3, 45 automatic sidearm, nine-millimetre AK47 tracer ammunition, 45 automatic G3 ammunition, eight firing pin, and one clocking handing. The rest are one AAA ammunition, five 12.7-millimetre ammunition and one machine gun.
Initial investigation by the Police in Kumasi revealed the sophisticated weapons were to be sold on the Ghanaian market which somewhat confirms Dr. Aning’s assertions.
The weapons were stashed in the bedroom of a one Moro Sata, a 72-year-old Burkinabe resident in Ghana in a house at Akwatia Line, a suburb of Kumasi.
The suspect who is currently in police grips said the weapons were headed for Niger and not meant for Ghana. It was this that Dr. Aning describes as “diversionary” adding that “Niger has its own sophisticated small arms challenge in which small arms weapons more sophisticated than this can easily be obtained.”
Speaking in an interview with Joy Fm, Dr. Aning said “we need to question these individuals much more closely. If we extrapolate what happens mostly a year or so before elections in Ghana, we see these massive flows of arms and ammunitions all over the country. We hardly have any clear idea of what happens to those who are arrested and the way they are punished.
“People could be aiming at using them to intimidate people and a lot more needs to be done to check these things.”
Dr. Aning last week raised concerns about potential violence in the 2016 elections if the security agencies fail to intensify their vigilance at the borders which has been described as ‘porous’.
After those comments however Dr. Aning said he was vilified for raising the concerns saying that “about 10 days after thanks to Kofi Boakye and his men they have ceased this major cache of weapons.”
He said “this is such a dramatic flow of such nature of weapons into our country and we have investigate who these people are, check their laptops, cell phones etc and find out who they have been speaking to in the last one year, who they have been getting messages from, check their bank accounts etc.”
By Martin Asiedu-Dartey|3news.com|Ghana
Twitter: NewsyMartin