Chereponi residents want Defense Minister fired over 'bias' role in conflict

The Defense Minister is accused of using the Ghana Army to back his Konkomba tribe against the Anufuls in the conflict which has claimed four lives and displaced several others.

Residents say they want a neutral arbiter and are demanding that president Nana Akufo-Addo fires Mr Nitiwul.

The latest violence in the region is said to be about a plot of land which reports say is not more than two acres.

Multiple media reports in the region say many residents are fleeing to neighboring Togo for fear of attacks.

“We are calling on the president to as a matter of urgency remove the Defense Minister Dominic Nitiwul. If the intelligence of His Excellency the president is on the grounds, the President should have been told that the Defense Minister’s tribe, the Konkombas have fought all the ethnic groups in the North and he (Dominic Nitiwul) shouldn’t have been the Defense Minister,” a resident told Accra-based Citi FM.

“We believe that he is behind his people. Why, for the past four days people are killed, properties destroyed and nothing is being done. Nitiwul hasn’t come to Chereponi to see, but he on the eve of the day the fight broke, was in Saboba. The president should call him to answer and he must be removed from the post."

Another also said: "Dominic Nitiwul must step aside so that a neutral person comes in. For a neutral person, we believe he can bring the two parties together, if he had done his work well this issue would not have aggravated, and now look at the time he took to send in the military, when distress calls were made.”

The Interior Ministry has imposed a curfew on the town to prevent further hostilities after almost a week of reprisals.

According to myjoyonline, busloads of Konkombas have crossed into the district from surrounding communities such as Wanguga.

They have been moving in since the New Year in an attempt to claim ownership over disputed lands in Chereponi.