Ghana’s police chief has warned troublemakers in the Krobo areas of the Eastern Region that he will make sure they do not have peace even in their death.

That part of the country has been plunged into darkness for the past few days following the relocation of the Somanya office of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) to Juapong in the Volta Region over security concerns.

Even though ECG explained, through a press statement that the blackout was a result of sabotage by some “unscrupulous persons”, a youth group called the Coalition of Krobo Youth, held a press conference recently at which it said the outage was an “intentionally” planned punitive measure.

ECG relocated its office with the reason that its workers felt threatened by the unfriendly activities of a separate youth group called United Krobo Foundation.

There has been no love lost between the townsfolk and the state power distributor over the past few years in relation to hefty electricity bills issued to the locals.

A few years ago, this sparked an anti-ECG demonstration that led to the death of a teenager.

In recent weeks, however, the two youth groups have been trading words over ECG’s presence in the area.

While the United Krobo Foundation held a demonstration at which its members insisted ECG leave the area, the Coalition of Krobo Youth disagreed.

As part of efforts to defuse the rising tension in the area, the Inspector-General of Police, Dr George Akuffo Dampare, and his lieutenants visited Odumase Krobo and had talks with the paramount chiefs of Yilo and Manya Krobo traditional areas, Nene Oklepeme Nuer Annobaa Sasraku II and Nene Sakite II, respectively; and later met the two youth groups on Friday, 10 December 2021.

He urged the youth to be of good behaviour but served a stern warning to those fomenting trouble among them.

“We want you to go home and peaceful. We want you to go home and be law-abiding. We want you to go home and start thinking that the best way to live a decent life and have a good future is to live in peace with one another; help the law-enforcement agencies to take away bad people from your midst for them to be put where they belong and those who will make noise beyond what we can contain, want to fight us with weapons, for them to be sent to the other side where some people will be sent to tomorrow [Saturday].”

“And, there, we have told God that for such people, when they come and they are wicked, they should put them in prison for them to wait for us so that when we finish all the work here before He has to call us, they’ll still be in prison; when we go, there’ll be judges there who have gone there before, there’ll be prosecutors there who have gone there before, there’ll be retired prisoner officers who have also been there; so all the systems are in place, so, we’ll go and take that person too from the jail and put him before the court before police prosecutors will be there and we jail the person again and we throw the person into perpetual cells”.

“So, even in your death, you’ll not have peace and that is our message to bad people: in your death, we will not let you have peace and for good people, we want you to enjoy peace while you are alive and die in peace and sleep in your death in peace and we’ll come and bless you in peace”, the police chief warned.