We have no militia – Western Togoland independence ‘fighters’

A national executive of the Volta separatist group,  Homeland Study Group Foundation (HSGF), Emmanuel Agbavor has rejected claims that the group had a militia.

According to the police, it had gathered from its intelligence that the group was training some young people to form a core of the supposed new country’s police and military force.

But Agbavor said the assertions are false.

He said the group was going through its planned processes peacefully and without any form of weapon.

Emmanuel Agbavor, in an interview on Eyewitness News, added that “How do you tag a nation [Western Togoland] which is going independent, which has nothing to do with Ghana and called them criminal groups. When Ghana was training its own, did we call them criminal groups?”

“We don’t have any militia training group anywhere… Everything that we are doing, we are doing it peacefully, we don’t have guns, we don’t have cutlasses, we don’t even have clubs to club anybody.”

The group wants the Western Togoland, modern-day Volta Region, to be declared an independent state.

He said the group enjoys massive support from millions of people in the Volta, Oti, Northern and North East regions as well as the other regions of the north.

“[The Study Group Foundation ] is a group that is leading the people of Western Togoland into independence. [The area includes] Oti, Bawku, Volta, Zabzugu Tatale among others belong to this Western Togoland. We want to create a brand new country.  We’ve been in this business for about 24 years now, we’ve been struggling to have this land liberated. People who expressed interest in their own country are more than 15 million now. We registered them all. We have the list,” he told Umaru Sanda on Eyewitness News on Monday.

Ringleaders leaders arrested

Eight leaders of the group were arrested on Sunday.

The Police in a statement said the group planned to declare their independence on Thursday, May 9, 2019.

Police said they had found a constitution, an emblem and an anthem the group intends to use after the secession.

History

The leadership of the Homeland Study Group foundation were earlier in March 2017 arrested for attempting to declare the Volta Region an independent state.

They were charged with treason but were later discharged with a warning.