….Family revealed Bawku killings were being under reported
LawyerCephas Motey, senior brother of the Ghana Immigration Service officer who was gruesomely murdered at Bawku, has revealed how the service kept his brother at post for over 11 years leave worn out and drained until his untimely demise when they went for him for burial.
He suggested that the security authorities, were concealing the number of deaths from the Bawku crisis.
At the funeral of Philip Kwame Motey, Cephas disclosed that his late brother, had begged to be transferred having been exhausted and many times he was hesitant to go back to his duty post, but he had to push him to return, and he reluctantly obliged, particularly when his study leave was over, but was killed on the night of Monday, April 3, 2023.
Cephas Motey, delivered a tribute in which he was brutally frank with the GIS and its senior officers who were present at a memorial service and led by Kwame Asuah Takyi, the Comptroller General of the GIS.
Cephas Motey, who addressed the GIS as “My learned friend” during Church service took place on Saturday, May 27, 2023 at Good Shepherd E. P. Church, Lashibi, in the Tema West Constituency, asked him what his men were up north simply holding pens and notebooks and dressed in very beautiful green-coloured uniforms.
“I saw Ayideya and Afari yesterday, my heart sank. They are totally deformed. The people you seek to protect, what are they doing to you, what are they doing to your men?
He suggested that the authorities were not reporting the proper numbers of deaths happening in Bawku, saying his investigations in the week in which Philip died, revealed many others also had died.
“My own investigations as a lawyer, showed that not less than less than 33 people died. The week after Philip died. In fact they did not die, they were murdered”.
“It was my intention to drive his vehicle to this premises for all of you to see what he went through, and if you were present with me at the funeral home on Thursday, when he was being bathed, you count not less than 200 Chickenpox kind of pox on his chest alone. He did not have the opportunity to shout or scream”.
He called out the perpetrators of the crime and damned northern territories as the most deprived place in the country with the highest number of non-governmental agencies working day and night to alleviate their plight yet increasingly engaged in shameful conducts including heinous crimes.
In a 9 minutes 7 seconds video that has gone viral on various social media, Cephas, disclosed that his slain brother was in line to be the third lawyer of the Motey family and insisted that what his killers did was going to dim the light that shines bright in their house.
He also stressed that if their intention was to feel like a victory, then they should know that death is a road everybody will also take, and for that reason, they had failed as the heavy presence of the people at the Philip’s funeral was “a manifestation of love over hate, manifestation of love all forms of cruelty, over any form of political defectiveness, any form of ethnic barbaric atrocity that is being perpetrated in Bawku”.
According to him, “Bawku is no longer a place for the living. It is a sad volatile zone”.
He described what happened to Philips and his colleague Harris Quartey with whom he was travelling that Easter Monday, was neither an accident nor a robbery.
“What happened that day was a carefully-designed, properly-planned, well-orchestrated, thoughtfully-calculated, and duly executed barbaric, cruel and gruesome act of murder. And I, Cephas, find it extremely difficult to forgive; not even with the intervention of Christ himself.
“And, I will not mince my words because I stand on this podium to speak the truth – that is what it is meant to be; the church. I find it extremely difficult to forgive. I will not ask Philip to rest in peace; it is his choice if he wants to rest in peace. If he does not want to rest in peace, I leave it to him,” he said.
“Philip hassled. You know growing up, our mother’s salary was so meager. I mean the pay slip was always there.
We saw it. A teacher’s salary in the eighties, Nineties. What was that? We sometimes had to help on the farm.We brought produce to Kpeve Market. Those of you who know Volta Region- Kpeve Market, to sell with our mother in the market. We strived. When Philip became an Immigration Officer, he spent his salary on all his siblings. There is not a single sibling of Philip who did not benefit from him”.
“Those of you who killed Philip, those of you who had a hand in his murder, I want to tell you this: shame on you. Shame on you. You cannot dim the light that shines in our home. You can only shake the foundation; you will never break the building.
“That Motey spirit is unbreakable. Philip has only lost his life. His dreams have been shattered, but you know what? You have also failed, because eventually, we are all going to lie in this same six feet,” he added.
Cephas Motey also expressed great disappointment in the fact that what happened to his brother, like many other victims, took place in a part of the country considered, very deprived and the poorest in the country.
“What hurts me the most is that the north with all due respect is the very and for the record, what we all know is the most deprived in this nation. The most deprived in the nation. That region is the most deprived in the nation statistically. Poor health facilities, poor schools, parents cannot afford school fees and so that is the hub of NGOs yet some of these people only take pride in receiving weapons from politicians, from chiefs, from people who can afford to give them. You cannot afford three square meals a day for your own children but what do you do? You smuggle weapons to kill yourselves and in the process you kill somebody who is there to serve for 11 solid years”.
He also recalled how his brother dedicated 11 years of his life to that part of the country, only to have it abruptly ended by violence adding, their 79-year-old mother looked forward to seeing their brother become the family’s third lawyer.
“And you see, what even hurts me the most is that the north is the most is that, with all due respect and for records, what we all know, is the most deprived in this nation. That region is the most deprived statistically: poor health facilities, poor schools, parents cannot afford school fees, and so that is the hub of NGOs, yet some of these people only take pride in receiving weapons from politicians, from chiefs, from people who can afford to give them.
“You cannot afford three square meals for your own children, but what do you do? You smuggle weapons to kill yourselves, and in the process, you kill somebody who is there to serve you. For 11 solid years, Philip was in the north. I refused to visit him because the first time I visited Tamale, which I’m told is the finest, I couldn’t stand the heat. He stayed there for 11 years,” he added.
He commended the military detachment in that part of the country for doing a good job.
He disclosed that he that family has been assured that the investigations are ongoing but then just like the journalist Arhmed Swaley’s murder investigations, just like that of Professor Benneh of the University of Ghana’s Faculty of Law in Legon, the MP JB Danquah’s murder investigations, what has come out of them.
“I do not see any justice for my brother. We the siblings do not believe that anything will come out of this. It is going to be one pomp and pageantry of a ceremonial something. That is what we believe. We lost someone who was going to be our mother’s third lawyer. And at 79, she sits there very confused at the burial ceremony of her son.
After 11 years of Philips’ service in the North, the prize the Motey and allied families of Tsibu Awudome in the Volta Region including his 89 year old father gets. “Shame on you!
The late Philip Motey was an Immigration officer stationed at Missiga check point, Bawku, in the Upper East Region.
On 3rd April 2023, the late Philip Motey was driving home together with two other colleagues when unknown persons shot at them leading to his death.
Wake and lying in State was held on Friday, 26th May 2023, at the family house Klagon, Abattoir Road off the Motorway Extension.
Church service took place on Saturday, 27th May, 2023 at Good Shepherd E. P. Church, Lashibi, Tema West.
His internment was at Tsibu Awudome, Volta Region with the thanksgiving on Sunday, 28th May, 2023 at Good Shepherd E. P. Church, Lashibi, Tema West.
