Volta Secessionists Were Treated With Child’s Gloves – Former CID Chief

General news for Sunday, October 11, 2020

Source: Starr FM

2020-10-11

The former director general of the Department of Criminal Investigations, COP Bright Oduro Rtd, has rebuked the Police Service for not dealing decisively with some members of secessionist groups fighting for the breakdown of some parts of the Volta region.

According to COP Oduro, if the members of the Western Togoland group who were arrested in 2017 had been treated harshly, the recent attack on a police station and roadblocks on the Volta would not have occurred.

Speaking in Starr FM’s analysis on Saturday, COP Oduro said that the security situation in the Volta region deteriorated because the Police Service treated members of the group from West Togoland with “child gloves”.

“This started in 2017 and by now we should have dealt decisively and that is why it has festered at this level, the Volta secessionists were treated with kid gloves.

“We (the Police) arrested them and took them to Accra, and then what happened, they were allowed to leave since 2017 and now they are blocking roads and attacking the police station and all that, we should have dealt decisively for a long time. Therefore, the less said about it, the better ”, said COP Oduro.

Members of the group from West Togoland recently blocked all access routes to the Volta region and seized ammunition belonging to the police following an attack on a police station.

The group subsequently attacked the STC yard in the Volta region and set some vehicles on fire. In all, more than 60 people have been arrested in the riots.

The upheavals of the separatist group demand that the independence of the Volta region and all other parts of the country be known as Western Togo before the 1956 plebiscite.

It is now emerging that there are around nine dissident groups leading the campaign, which includes Papavi Hogbedetor’s Homeland Study Group and the Western Togo Restoration Front.