The Upper West Regional Security Council (REGSEC) says it is alarmed and surprised that security strategies put in place have failed in tracking down perpetrators of the Wa killings.

This follows a growing sense of fear and panic at Dobile, a suburb of Wa in the Upper West Region following the gruesome murder of a middle-aged man in the area.

The deceased, Opoku Richard was found dead with his throat slit at the back of a trailer loaded with tonnes of salt that he accompanied to Wa.

This recent murder brings the number of persons killed in the municipality to 17 in the last 3 years.

The Chairman of the Upper West Regional Security Council and Minister, Stephen Yakubu, has urged residents to be vigilant.

“I am very shocked because we have put a lot of security men – police, soldiers on the ground patrolling and we have designed a way of catching who is doing this and so for this to happen at dawn, we are very surprised,” he said.

Read also: Wa killing: Measures have been put in place to arrest perpetrators – MCE

He called on residents to cooperate with the police and provide any little information necessary to aid in the investigation.

"Our understanding is that the car arrived yesterday around 5 pm. How did people come to know that the car was parked here? How did anyone know that someone was sleeping on the veranda? The police want to know all this information," he said.

The Member of Parliament for Wa Central, Rashid Pelpuo, who offered a 100,000 cedis bounty to anyone who could volunteer information on the killers, is asking the police to step up their efforts in unraveling the mystery. This, he says, is to prevent the residents from taking the law into their own hands.

“If the police are not doing what they should be doing and the people begin to act the way they should not act to get them [perpetrators], in a manner that they think is right, I don’t know whether that is going to help but very likely, it is going to destroy more than we can imagine.

“So I will urge the security to step up its duty by introducing some sophistication in the search for the people .. I mean it is shameful that you see some of these things happening and you don’t see the people behind them,” he stressed.