Gov’t creating unnecessary tension with arrest of secessionists – Volta youth

The Coalition believes the government is causing ‘unnecessary tension’ by arresting people who they say are harmless.

Eight leading members of a separatist movement in the Volta Region, the Homeland Study Group Foundation (HSGF), were arrested on Sunday by a joint police-military team.

The group was agitating for the restoration of the Western Togoland as an independent state from Ghana.

They are led by an 80-year-old man, Charles Kormi Kudzodzi, popularly known as Papavi Hogbedetor, who was also arrested.

Although Mr. Kudzodzi been since been granted bail to the tune of GH¢250,000 with two sureties, all the others have been slapped with the charges of treason felony, abetment of unlawful training, unlawful assembly and offensive conduct.

Meanwhile, 81 persons believed to be part of the campaign to declare the Volta Region independent from Ghana have also been picked up by the police.

Reacting to this, Chairman of the Coalition of Volta Youth, Simon Kofi Ohene, said the treatment meted out to the secessionists is harsh.

According to him, they have proven to be harmless and law-abiding, and therefore did not deserve to be arrested in such a manner.

The said the heavy-handedness towards the secessionist group is only causing unnecessary tension in the country.

“I don’t think it is the right way to go…those people are harmless. When you went to arrest them there was no resistance from them. They are law-abiding citizens and therefore arresting, releasing and arresting them is just creating unnecessary tension in the country,” Mr. Ohene pointed out.

Mr. Kudzodzi and the other secessionists’ case will be heard on May 22.