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The Chief of Yawhima, a suburb of Sunyani in the Sunyani East Municipality of the Bono Region, Nana Ansu Ababio II has made a passionate appeal to President Akufo-Addo as a matter of urgency to facilitate the process for payment of compensation due those whose lands were acquired as Shooting Range for the military in Sunyani.
In 1982, the then government acquired a seven-mile square piece of land belonging to some individuals in Yawhima as a Shooting Range for the military personnel after a military barracks was built in Sunyani, the then Brong Ahafo capital.
Upon acquisition, the state agreed to compensate the chiefs and individuals who have cultivated some food and cash crops on the said lands but that promise is yet to be fulfilled.
Out of the seventy-five farmers who were affected at the time, only three are still alive.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with Daily Searchlight’s Collins Fosu Appiah, Nana Ababio II observed that his people have suffered a lot. Out of the seventy-five farmers whose farmland w ceased, seventy-two have died of grief leaving three.
He revealed that several efforts have been made to successive governments to give the people what they deserve but have not yielded any positive results.
“Government has paid the chiefs what is due them, but my problem is that individuals whose farmlands were acquired have not been paid since 1982. They have all died of grief leaving three who are still alive and anytime I go to them, they keep complaining about how the state has treated them”.
“After the government acquired the land for the military, one farmer who went there to harvest his cocoa was arrested and detained for several days by the military for stepping foot on his own farm. The painful aspect is that they followed him to his house and collected all the cocoa beans he has harvested and dried”.
“This man is old in the house now and anytime I go to him he talks about how his cocoa farm that could have changed his life was ceased and the government’s inability to pay the agreed compensation to him”.
Nana Ababio II added that all the documents and agreements are with the military but he doesn’t understand why they are not playing the affected people. He used the opportunity and called on President Akufo-Addo to facilitate and pay the people so the remaining three do not die of grief like others.
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