A few hours after turning in from a late production schedule in the office, he was jolted by a persistent knocking on his gate, with the order “open your door we have come for you.”
According to Mr Alimi, he heard banging of the gate with accompanying barking by his dogs, causing fear and panic among residents. The incident happened around 1:30am, with frantic calls made to contacts and well-wishers for assistance.
The Chief News Editor of the newspaper, when the editor called him at about 2.15am, made a quick call to a retired Assistant Commissioner of Police, Richard Baduweh, who called the Police Headquarters Information Room. The police emergency numbers were not immediately available to the editors at the time.
They later made contacts with other people which led to about three different patrol teams arriving at the scene. The News Editor made another call to the Acting Director of the Police Public Affairs Directorate, DSP Cephas Arthur, who contacted a patrol team.
As he spoke to the besieged editor and his family, he could hear the knocking and the screams of neighbours of “akronfuo oh”, to wit “robbers oh”, in a desperate bid to call the intervention of others in the neighbourhood.
When some three patrol teams turned up following the rather vague description of the location, the armed robbers had disappeared, leaving behind a man who could hardly mutter a word.
The police picked him away.
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