A youth group within the Zongo Community in Ahwiaa by name Ahwiaa Zongo Youth Association has appealed to the Police and the media to stop describing them as violent people.
This negative tag, the group believes is unfair and not representative of things happening in the ancient Ashanti Community.
Addressing the media last Tuesday, Spokesperson and Secretary for the group, Zuraka Mohammed maintained that the Zongo youth are a working class of people and do not indulge themselves in idle ventures including the perpetration of violence.
The Zongo community and its people, the spokesperson tearfully noted have however on countless times been described as violent with the recent one being the clashes that ensued in the area where a boy of Zongo extraction was killed in cruel manner.
‘’We are a peace loving people and but for the last 15 years when our folks were subjected to unprovoked attacks by our Ashanti brothers we were living peacefully in this Ahwiaa community’’, Zuraka noted with pain.
MEDIA:
The spokesperson described as unfair the treatment some of the media houses in Ghana have discussed issues bothering on the Zongo people.
He recalled last Monday as the day where the negative tag by the media reached a crescendo as some described what happened at the Ahwiaa community as a classic case of barbarism perpetrated by the people of the Zongo.
Mentioning some notable media houses for engaging in such negative reportage, the Secretary advised other media houses to treat issues that come up in the Ahwiaa community with the professionalism it deserves.
He noted the era where one can conveniently and erroneously conclude on a matter just because he sits on television or radio is over, adding journalists must act dispassionately and fairly at all times.
‘’As media people we entreat you to serve the people fairly by getting the sides of all persons concerned in an issue so that you do not wrongly lump people together and tag them as violent’’, the spokesperson posited.
POLICE:
The group expressed dissatisfaction about the manner the Police has handled issues in the Ahwiaa Community.
Rather than seeking to do painstaking investigations whenever an issue occurrs in the area, the spokesperson said the Police have always acted in a bias manner by deploring full force of personnel in the Zongo section of the community leaving the Ashanti line untouched.
This attitude by the Police coupled with the behavior of the District Security Council (DISEC), the Spokesperson mentioned have always created the impression that the people of the Zongos are violent, a tag he described as false.
He urged Ghanaians, the media as well as the Police to henceforth desist from falsely accusing the people of the Zongo of crimes they have not committed but rather discuss the issues at stake with some intelligence.
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