Remove inland immigration posts at Asikuma, Sogakope — VRHC

THE Volta Region House of Chiefs (VRHC) has called for the immediate removal of the inland posts of the Ghana Immigration Service (GIS) at Asikuma, along the Ho-Accra road; and the other at Sogakope, saying they serve no good to the travelling public.

The house also called for the immediate removal of the police barrier at Juapong on the same stretch.

The President of VRHC, Togbe Tepre Hodo IV, said at the last meeting of the house in 2024, last Thursday that immigration posts were important at the country’s entry and exit points, and not at inland locations.

No secessionist

“Besides, there are no more secessionist activities in the region, as was the case a few years ago,” he maintained.

Togbe Tepre Hodo said some of the immigration officers only harassed and humiliated travellers, including chiefs, at those posts without any justification.

For instance, Togbe Tepre Hodo sought to know what the point was in asking travellers to go off their buses and walk for several metres to a point beyond the posts before waiting for their buses to come and pick them up to continue their journey.

The President of VRHC said there were no such awkward road barriers in other parts of the country, and so it was unfair to subject travellers from the Volta Region to such demeaning ordeals.

He said what was even more annoying was how some of the unruly immigration officers sometimes held travellers hostage, insisting they spoke Twi to prove they were Ghanaians, adding that was an unacceptable way to profile a traveller.

“We are not living in a police state, and so let us travel in peace,” Togbe Tepre Hodo insisted.

Earlier this year, three members of VRHC complained bitterly about how they were humiliated by immigration officers at the two posts while travelling from the Volta Region to Accra.

Paramount chiefs

They are the Paramount Chief of Amugo-Vego, Togbi Tenge Dzokoto Gligui; Paramount Chief of Tefle, Togbe Nakakpo Dugbaza VII, who said they were harassed at the Sogakope post, and Paramount Chief of Akoefe, Togbe Drake Tsigbe IV, who narrated the repeated ordeal he suffered at the hands of immigration officers at the Asikuma inland post.

The chiefs said they found it demeaning how they were ordered by the immigration officers at the Sogakope and Asikuma posts to come out of their vehicles to open the boots of their cars although they were in the royal regalia, and had family members on board who could open the boots for them.

They made the complaint to the Minister of  Chieftaincy and Religious Affairs, Stephen Asamoah Boateng, when he visited the VRHC in April, this year.