Blame police if Buduburam is a criminal zone

National Chairman of the Progressive People’s Party (PPP), Nana Ofori Owusu, has blamed the Government of Ghana and security agencies for the Buduburam Camp being a crime zone.

Nana Ofori Owusu, speaking to Kwami Sefa Kayi on Peace FM’s ‘Kokrokoo’ programme, rejected the decision that the Buduburam refugees, mostly Liberians, should leave the camp.

According to him, the notion that the camp has become a hub for criminal activities is neither here nor there.

This is because, to him, if the place breeds criminals, it means those charged with the responsibility to maintain law and order as well as provide the neccesities of life to the refugees have failed.

He wondered why the camp is surrounded by security agencies, yet the crime rate is high.

“What has been the role of Ghana Police and Ghana security agencies in making sure we bring this thing to a minimum? It means that somebody too has reneged on their responsibility in terms of what they are there to do because crime is crime and you’re trained to stop crime irrespective of the people who are there. That is our job to bring internal security; so that argument, to me, it falls on deaf ears from the beginning. That because the place is a high-prone crime, who made it a high-prone crime?”, he exclaimed.

He further argued; “Any place wihout job, any place without proper schooling and the opportunity to get out, you put the people there; you and I, if we grew up there, we will also have some propensity to do inappropriate things in the name of survival . . . So, you can’t now go back to the victim and say that having been victimized all this time, we are doubling it. No, no, no; I can’t subscribe to that mindset and that argument.”