The Ghana Lebanon Islamic Secondary School (GLISS) has sent a distress call to the government and relevant state security agencies to take immediate steps to demolish a slum community around the school.
The nefarious activities of squatters at a sprawling slum that straddles the Odaw River from the Graphic Road to the Kwame Nkrumah Circle are posing serious safety and security threats to GLISS.
The students and teachers of the school, which is located between the Accra Digital Centres and the VIP Transport Station, fear for their lives as the miscreants in the squalor settlement continue to threaten them.
From dawn to dusk, the slum enclave bustles with gangster lifestyles, including the sale and use of hard drugs, prostitution and violent exchanges that put the school community at risk.
Although the school authority has raised concerns about safety threats to students and staff members over the years, the situation continues to deteriorate as the gangsters have now resorted to the use of arms.
Dire situation
The Daily Graphic’s visit to the area last Monday brought to the fore the reality of gangsterism and its excruciating impact on the school community.
Abdul Rahim Mohammed, Member of the PTA, speaking to the media about his concerns after the visit
For instance, a member of the GLISS Parent Teachers Association (PTA), Abdul-Raheem Mohammed, told the Daily Graphic last Tuesday, there were sporadic gunshots in the area, leaving students to run into hiding.
“The situation is getting out of hand and the students are no longer safe. Parents fear walking through the slum to the school to see their children because they can be robbed or attacked; students do not feel secure to learn; and very soon, the school will lose its population,” he said.
Mr Mohammed added that the increasing spate of criminal activities and social vices among the squatters was having a negative impact on the moral fibre of the students.
‘This school has boarding facilities with students staying on campus. However, every Friday, the squatters organise naked jams just 50 metres away from here, and you can imagine the harm it is causing to our students. With this kind of thing happening around a school, the students are not safe,” he added.
He also said it was worrying that although the issue had lingered on for some time now, students and staff members of the school continued to fall prey to the miscreants who robbed them.
Mr Mohammed said although several petitions had been sent to the mandated city authorities and security agencies to clamp down on the activities of the squatters, “nothing significant has been done”.
“The squatters started putting up temporary structures along the Railway Line in January, this year, and we took steps to report to the mandated authorities.
We sent petitions to the Ghana Railway Authority, the Greater Accra Regional Coordinating Council (GARCC), the Accra Metropolitan Authority (AMA), the police and other state agencies; but nothing has been done about it,” he said.
Mr Mohammed alleged that some political forces were behind the failure of the state institutions to demolish the slum community and the continuous existence of the squatters.
“The squatters feel so emboldened that they even come to the school to warn us that they will attack us because we are reporting them to the government for demolition,” he said.
