Zongo youth, Baptist Church in near bloody clash

by Chris Twum

The timely intervention of the police averted what could have been a bloody clash between the Zongo community at Madina, a suburb of Accra, and the Baptist Church in the same community, over a parcel of land that the two groups are claiming ownership of.

The Zongo community claims the land belongs to the community, and that the church cannot take possession of it.

The dispute over the land was said to have travelled to the courts, where the Baptist Church won, but the local community would not accept the ruling, and rather went to the land in contention and locked up the church and school situated there, disrupting academic work for the morning.

The leadership of the Baptist Church reported the incident to the Madina police, who immediately responded, and came to remove the locks and barricades, before the pupils could have access to their classrooms, and the teachers their offices.

This incurred the wrath of the protesting community residents, who had already gathered on the parcel of land in dispute.

The protestors, mostly made up of the youth, pelted the police with stones, mounted road blocks, and smashed the windscreens of cars, including two police vehicles.

Efforts by the police to disperse the crowd, which had by this time become unruly, resulted in the firing of tear gas canisters and use of water cannons.
In the ensuing confrontation, the police managed to arrest 22 members of the mob, who were later detained at the Madina police station.

The youth then retreated, re-strategised and again invaded the Madina police station. All efforts to disperse them proved futile, until the police employed the use of some more tear gas amid the firing of warning shots.

A tour of the school premises also revealed that the nursery section of the school was attacked at a time that the kids were having their breakfast.

The stones thrown were found littered all over the school compound, with the main fence wall of the school destroyed.

Speaking in an interview with The Chronicle, the Assistant Head Pastor of Faith Baptist Church (FBC), Rev. Oduro Yeboah, said the school acquired the said land in 1988 from the Lands Commission. According to him, a road that was constructed divided the land into two. “We had to re-apply and re-possess the other side of the land in the year 2000 from the Land Commission, to enable them give us the proper documentation to cover the two parcels of land,” Rev. Oduro Yeboah said.

According to him, because they did not put the land to immediate use, some squatters came to occupy it. The pastor alleged that in 2002, they asked the squatters to vacate the land for the church to set up a university, but they refused.

This dispute ended in the courts, which the church won. According to Rev. Yeboah, the church subsequently applied to the court for re-possession of the land, which was granted.

However, their attempt to start work on the land was met with strong resistance from the Zongo youth, which eventually led to the skirmish.