[ 2017-10-10 ]

Operation to ban public smoking in Tamale to be activated after six arrested in
A joint military and police team on Monday
arrested six suspected criminals in the Tamale
Forest Reserve in the Northern Region as part of
efforts to rid the forest reserve and the
metropolis of criminals and restore sanity.

The almost two-hour swoop came on the heels of
suspected illegal and criminal activities
including the peddling of marijuana and
theft-associated activities by some individuals
and groups in the forest reserve. The Tamale
metropolis has two main forest reserves which are
located in Nyohoni and Gumani.

However, the supposed protected areas have become
homes to all criminal activities.

People walk in to purchase marijuana, and exchange
monies for stolen items especially motorbikes. A
chunk of residents in the metropolis are privy to
these activities but authorities including chiefs
have done little to curb this menace.

Children of school-going ages – both male and
female – under the supervision of gang leaders
have made the reserves an abode where they
comfortably transact their illegal businesses.

Ironically, persons who have lost their property
have been directed to these reserves.

Surprisingly, they are made by the leadership of
the gangs to pay for their ‘retrieved’ items.
These instances prompted the swoop led by the
Mayor of Tamale, Iddrisu Musah Superior, who upon
giving these peddlers a 21-days ultimatum stormed
the forest in the late hours of Monday.

Large parcels of dried weeds suspected to be
marijuana were seized by the security agencies and
six were sent to the Tamale Metropolitan Police
Command for investigation.

Musah Superior indicated that he has had
encounters with some of these individuals who are
mainly minors and have established that most of
them have dropped out of school due to financial
challenges.

He said the Assembly is in a position to help the
minors who were rescued and are set to be returned
home.

“From my interaction with them, I have realized
that genuinely some of them want to do great
things for themselves but they are engaged in what
they are doing because their parents could not
afford their school fees and they are now school
dropouts,” he told journalists.

“The Assembly is going to support those ones.”
He also revealed the Assembly will from next month
commence an operation to stop smoking in public.

Source - 3news.com

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