Old Dokokyina residents given 2-week ultimatum to vacate Bui Dam site

The Brong Ahafo Regional Security Council (REGSEC) has given the Old Dokokyina community, located within the catchment area of the Bui Dam, a two-week ultimatum to relocate or risk forceful eviction without any prior notice after the expiration of the ultimatum to ensure maximum security at the dam site.

The out-going Brong Ahafo Regional Minister, Mr Paul Evans Aidoo, announced that at a press conference to state the position on reported perpetration of illegal activities at Old Dokokyina.

The Brong Ahafo Regional

Co-ordinating Council and REGSEC, in collaboration with the National Security Council and supported by the Banda District Assembly, the Bui Power Authority and the Game and Wild Life Division of the Forestry Commission, organised the press conference to brief the media and the general public on evolving security issues at Old Dokokyina, a community located within the catchment area of the Bui Dam.

Background

Mr Aidoo explained that as part of the Bui Dam project implementation plan, it was decided that the inhabitants of six villages in the catchment area of the dam, namely Bui, Bator-Akanyakrom, Berewohodi, Agbegikuro, Lucene and Dokokyina, must be relocated to new settlements to be provided for them under the terms of the contract.

He said that was to prevent them from being displaced by the flooding of their farms and homes and that it was expected that 444 square kilometres of total land area would be affected by the flood water.

As a result, he said new settlements were constructed by the Bui Power Authority, with modern social amenities provided, in accordance with a resettlement plan for the affected areas, to make life very comfortable for the inhabitants even though they had been displaced from their ancestral lands.

Mr Aidoo said all the six communities, including 30 out of the 36 households with the recognised ‘odikro’ (chief) of Dokokyina, that were to be relocated agreed to move to their new settlements.

However, he said residents of six of the households in Dokokyina resisted and refused to be relocated.

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Foreign nationals

He said the intransigence of the six households to relocate had led to foreign nationals from neighbouring countries, including Cote d’lvoire, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso and China, invading the area with impunity.

Population increase

Consequently, he said, it has been estimated that the population of Dokokyina had risen sharply from the initial 15 occupants of the six households to an estimated 5,000 people, including women and children.

“REGSEC is highly convinced that both the intransigent residents who have blatantly refused to relocate to the newly constructed settlement for them, with provision of modern social and utility services, and the illegal migrants must be ejected as a lasting solution to the long-standing problem,” he stressed.

That, he said, had reaffirmed the assertion that the area had become attractive to both locals and foreign nationals who were engaged in all manner of illegal activities that posed a threat to national security.

Firearms

Mr Aidoo said the settlers were reportedly armed with sophisticated firearms with which they threatened officials of the Game and Wildlife Division of the Forestry Commission and the Bui Power Authority whenever there was an attempt to relocate them.

“Alarmed by these threatening developments, REGSEC embarked on a number of monitoring visits to the Dokokyina  community and during a recent verification visit on Tuesday, February 25, 2014 by a team that comprised the military, the police, and BNI, it was discovered that the picture on the ground was more terrible than REGSEC had first thought”, he said.

Mr Aidoo said REGSEC, after due deliberation and assessment of the situation, and in consultation with the National Security Council Secretariat, had come to the conclusion that the situation must be brought under control and the threat posed by the illegal activities of the recalcitrant residents and migrants at Old Dokokyina completely neutralised in the national interest.”