A group of land and property owners has petitioned President Akufo-Addo over an alleged unlawful demolition exercise at East Legon.

According to the group, persons suspected to be land guards, under the guise of working for the state, stormed their premises and destroyed properties worth millions of Ghana cedis.

The incident is said to have happened on Monday, 26th and Tuesday, 27th of April, 2021.

"Some persons claiming to have been sent by the Lands and Natural Resource Ministry with an acclaimed backing of the Ministry of National Security entered our property without any notice to us and caused massive demolition,” part of a petition sighted by JoyNews read.

However, members of the group insist they legitimately acquired the lands which are located at East Legon Mempehuasem from the right authorities. 

..we lawfully found ourselves on these lands following grants of same made to us by our respective grantors who are mostly the chiefs and people of the Sanshie family of Mepehuasem.

“We hold lease documents to these lands and some assigned documents from legitimate grantees of the family aforementioned,” the group said.

They further noted that “…upon obtaining our respective grants of these lands, we had presented same to the Lands Commission who had processed same and issued to some of us title certificate whilst others are under processing.

“Majority of us Petitioners herein have occupied and possessed these lands between 15 to 20 years ago and within this period made massive investments on the land by way of building structures in the form of fence walls, buildings under construction and completed buildings, where some of us have lived and continued to live with our families.”

They noted that “during these years of our possession of the subject land, nobody, institution and or Government for that matter, had ward us off these lands neither protested our development on same.”

“It is therefore preposterous for a group of persons to come in a Covid-19 branded vehicle without notice to start demolishing our properties upon the pretext that same is owned by the government.

“We also wish to respectfully draw your attention to the fact that, assuming without admitting that the government has an interest in these scattered parcels of land or owns same, we believe there is the need in a democratic environment as ours to have been heard on the circumstances upon which we found ourselves on the land.

They contend that “the said behaviour is not only unfair but also unlawful and call for immediate reprimand.

“We have been traumatized and financially affected by the illegal exercise to a collective tune of GH₵ 3,000,000. We therefore petition your high office and plead with you to investigate the activities of the said Clement Gyato, a known land guard who goes about destroying people's properties using the names of state institutions and officials."