National Security Advisor Opposes Evicting S&G Squatters

The National Security Advisor, Brigadier General Nunoo Mensah (rtd) has expressed his opposition to any intended eviction of squatters at Sodom and Gomorrah without a proper relocation plan. General Nunoo Mensah says bulldozing the 55,000 residents out of the sprawling slum without any resettlement plan will be unjustified. According to him, evicting the squatters without a resettlement plan will amount to putting the nation�s security at risk. The Mayor of Accra, Alfred Vanderpuije and the Regional Minister, Nii Armah Ashitey had declared the slum a national security threat. Mr. Vanderpuije says he will go ahead and evict the squatters although Government through, a Deputy Information Minister, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa advised that the process be done with a human touch. The Accra Mayor has nonetheless caused continuous announcement at the slum warning the squatters to move. He has told the media in several interviews that the Accra Metropolitan Assembly is not responsible for any resettlement issues and insists the squatters must move. But General Nunoo Mensah in an interview with Cti News says the mayor must not rush into bulldozing the squatters out without resettling them. �We all know that they should go but where are they going to go? Are you going to throw them into the streets? That will compound the problems of National Security,� he said. He suggests that a committee be put in place to interview the slum dwellers, find out what they can do and redeploy them to some other �empty spaces around Ghana� to undertake some meaningful ventures. General Nunoo Mensah says a better planning to the resettlement quagmire will make the Sodom and Gomorrah dwellers useful to society. �There is no problem that is impossible to solve but we need to plan it carefully and it can be done�we have to assist them to make life better for themselves,� he said.