Chiefs,Elders and Youth protest against the sale of land at Ningo (August 24,2009)

Story: Michael Donkor
The chiefs, elders and youth of Lerwem, a farming community in Ningo near Accra, have protested against the acquisition of large tracts of their land by the Queens Atlantic Resort, a private estate developer, for development into residential and tourist facilities.
They, therefore, vowed to resist any attempt by the private developer to develop 171 acres acquired from Nene Kanor Atiapah III, the Mankralo of Ningo Traditional Area and acting president of the area.
However, the company insists that it genuinely acquired the land for the purpose intended.
According to the chief of Lerwem, Nene Agortey Teffah II, the people inherited the farmland from their forefathers and they had been farming on it to earn a living.
He said their farms and the only cemetery where they bury their relatives, were being destroyed by the developer.
Briefing the Daily Graphic about their predicament, the spokesman for the Lerwem Stool, Mr Tafa Ahadie, said about a year ago they saw pillars being erected on their farmlands and they reported the development to the chief.
He said the chief said he knew nothing about the move and ordered that the pillars be removed, which they did.
Mr Ahadie said later Nene Atiapah came to them and said he had allocated the land to a private developer for development.
Although they kicked against the idea, they saw bulldozers on their land destroying their farms.
Mr Ahadie said they subsequently petitioned the Ningo-Prampram police to intervene to forestall any bloodshed but that did not yield any results only for the developer to deploy land guards at the site to terrorise them anytime they went to farm.
But when Nene Atiapah was contacted, he denied that he clandestinely sold the land. Rather, he said, the land was sold based on the consent of the 14 family heads making up the clan and showed documents bearing the signatures of all the 14 family heads to the Daily Graphic.
He claimed that some people from Lerwem sold portions of the land to a developer for GH¢17,000, a move he kicked against because the due process of land acquisition was not followed.
In view of his position on the sale of the portion of the land, Nene Atiapah said some of the people also decided to create problems for the Queens Atlantic Resort who had acquired large portions of the land for investment.
He said those whose farms were destroyed had been compensated and when the issue of the cemetery came to him, he quickly resolved the problem by ensuring that that portion of the land was not affected by the development initiated by the Queens Atlantic Resort .
He, therefore, expressed surprise at the behaviour of the people of Lerwem.
When the private developer, Queen Irene Cole, was contacted, she showed video footings of all the transactions she had with the 14 family heads in connection with the land.
She produced documents which gave her title to the land in dispute and added that she had paid the owners of the land.
She said what was left for her to pay to Nene Atiapah would be effected after she had developed the land in accordance with the sales agreement.
Queen Cole said she would resist any attempt by anybody to take the land from her, since she went through the right procedure to acquire it.