Antoa in court

FINAL YEAR students of Christ the King International Junior High School in Kumasi who could not write the just-ended Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) because the proprietor and headmaster of the school failed to pay their registration fees to the West African Examination Council (WAEC), on Wednesday invoked the spirit of the ‘Antoa Nyamaa’ river deity to deal ruthlessly with the school heads.

The invocation of the spirit of the dreaded river goddess by the embittered students took place immediately after a Kumasi Circuit Court presided over by Eric Baah granted Messrs Adu Gyamfi and Agyenim Boateng bail in the sum of GH¢10,000 each with two sureties.

As soon as the judge announced that he could not continue to keep the suspects in prison custody and that he had granted them bail to reappear in court on May 22 this year, a section of the aggrieved students who besieged the court to witness proceedings spontaneously called the name of the powerful river deity and rained curses on them.

The disillusioned students who became flatly disappointed in the granting of bail to the school heads, out of annoyance, also hurled curses at persons who would stand in as surety for the bail process to be complete.

However, the eye-red students did not use the usual ritual materials like Schnapps, eggs and others to invoke the river spirit on the school heads whose alleged recklessness caused them the exams.

“If Nana ‘Antoa Nyamaa’ is really alive and powerful as we’re made to believe, then it should deal callously with these men who cut short our ambition to pursue Senior High School education this year,” one of the angered students shouted.

The infuriated students who were accompanied to the court by their parents and guardians could not hide their disappointment as they jeered and hooted at the suspects as the vehicle conveying them to the Ashanti Regional Police Command passed by.

Messrs Gyamfi and Boateng, who are facing trial at the court for allegedly defrauding 106 final year students of the school to the tune of GH¢2,650 being their BECE registration fees with false pretence, had been in prison custody since April 20.

Judge Baah have remanded the suspects in prison custody on two occasions since they made their first appearance in court because the prosecution team headed by Chief Inspector Alice Nkansah of the regional police command needed time to complete their investigations.

The prosecution, in praying the court to remand the suspects on the two occasions, told the court that they were looking for a key accomplice in the case whose presence would help them much in making progress in their investigations.

At court sitting yesterday, the prosecution announced that they had completed their investigations and that the docket was ready.

In view of the prosecution’s submission, the court granted bail to the suspects in the sum of GH¢10,000 each with two sureties for them to reappear on May 22 this year for the trial of the case to begin.

According to the facts of the case as available to DAILY GUIDE, Messrs Gyamfi and Boateng failed to pay the registration fees of 106 final year students of the school to WAEC after they had allegedly collected an amount of GH¢25 from each of them.

The accused persons, after failing to pay the registration fees to WAEC, organisers of the exams, ended up giving false hope to the students by purportedly providing them with fake index numbers.

Messrs Gyamfi and Boateng who were arrested on Saturday, April 18, 2009 by the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) Police allegedly collected GH¢15 as BECE registration fees and GH¢10 as mock examination fees.

As a result of the reported untoward conduct of the pair, the students could not take part in neither the mock examination nor the just-ended BECE which decides the Senior High School education faith of students at that level.

From Morgan Owusu, Kumasi