Victims of the Adjei Kojo demolition exercise have vented their spleen on the Member of Parliament (MP) for Tema East, Daniel Nii Kwartei Titus-Glover, calling on the legislature to sanction him over his unsavory remarks about them.
“You don’t deserve to be here. The Speaker should punish you for publicly insulting us,” the aggrieved residents told Mr. Titus-Glover in the face, when they stormed Parliament on Wednesday, to hold discussions with the Parliamentary select Committee on Works and Housing.
The disgruntled residents, numbering about thirty, ambushed the Tema East law maker when exiting the room where the committee was holding deliberations with their leaders, and in the process verbally assaulted him for calling them thieves and armed robbers.
The residents had by an invitation of the David Tetteh Assumeng chaired committee, appeared to give account of their side of the story, in relation to the acquisition of the Adjei Kojo lands and the eventual demolishing of their properties by the TDC.
Their engagement was to enable the committee to establish the facts about the real owners of the Adjei Kojo lands, the exact number of demolished buildings, as well as the alleged victimization of the residents by a combined team of security personnel and officials of the TDC.
The committee had a fortnight ago, engaged the TDC in a similar manner to also hear their side of the story over the acquisition of the contentious piece of land and its demolition exercise that had rendered hundreds of families homeless.
Mr. Titus-Glover, also a member of the committee on Works and Housing, vehemently denied ever using the denigrating remarks on the residents of Adjei Kojo during the deliberations.
“Mr. Chairman, I want this to be on record, I never said the residents occupying the land are thieves and armed robbers. What I said was that the place was a den of armed robbers,” he noted.
But despite his denial, the victims insisted that the Tema East legislator was not truthful to the committee and promised to show him where power lies.
True to their words, the victims attacked Mr. Titus-Glover when he was exiting the room of the committee and demanded from him why he called them thieves and armed robbers.
No amount of words could convince the victims to back off. “We will play the tape for all Ghanaians to hear,” the aggrieved residents noted. It took the intervention of some committee members and other MPs to calm nerves down.
Though the committee has not concluded its investigations, Mr. Titus-Glover is convinced the TDC was right to have demolished the illegal structures at Adjei Kojo, after perusing through the documents submitted to the committee by the TDC boss, Joe Abbey.
“By the documents they have provided, somebody should be bold enough and say what is wrong is wrong,” he said.
The committee is expected to visit the demolished site today, Monday, March 10, 2014, to ascertain the facts of the matter.
Meanwhile, the committee had directed the residents to furnish them with further and better particulars covering the controversial piece of land, together with any other relevant information for their perusal, latest by Friday, March 7, 2014.
The aggrieved residents, led by Nii Abo Gbaku, Agbafoaste, Tema, had told the committee that the TDC can not lay claim to the said piece of land, since “that land belonged to the Agbomante family of Tema New Town.”
Clad in black fugu with a red piece of calico around his neck, the Chief inquired from the committee whether the TDC was right to work on the disputed piece of land while the committee was still investigating the matter.
He told the committee that the action of the TDC was a clear attempt to cover up the number of buildings that were pulled down during the demolishing exercise.
“Mr. Chairman, The TDC started destroying evidence on the 15th of February. The security personnel on the ground are also intimidating my people. I will plead with you stop the TDC from going to the site until investigations are concluded,” Nii Gbaku tellingly appealed.
While the TDC argued it only pulled down 65 structures in the demolishing exercise on the 10 acre piece of land, the residents contested it and insisted the number was 500.