The Inspector-General of Police, Christian Tetteh Yohuno, has transferred the Upper East Regional Police Commander, DCOP Raymond Wejong Ali Adofiem, sources within the Ghana Police Service have revealed.
The sources say he has been moved to the national police headquarters, with his new designation yet to be known.
Media Without Borders learns the Deputy Ashanti Regional Police Commander, ACP John Ferguson Dzineku, has been appointed to take over as the new Upper East Regional Police Commander.
The outgoing regional commander “has also been told not to wear the police uniform” pending his movement to the national headquarters, a source said.
A string of hot issues came before the transfer. Below is a recap of some of those issues:
Failure to prosecute a gun shooter
A Talensi gold miner called Paazie Naab and nicknamed Commando was captured in video clips brandishing guns and piercing the air with eleven shots from a pistol in 2022.
He donated two motorbikes to the Upper East Regional Police Command after terrified residents complained and asked that he be prosecuted for flaunting and unlawfully discharging a firearm in public.
Commando was accompanied to the motorbike donation ceremony by John Nabwomya Millim who became the District Chief Executive (DCE) of Talensi this year (2025) amid serious public protests and reported state security advice against his nomination.
Evidence of Commando firing the shots was presented to the Upper East Regional Police Command in 2022 but he was not prosecuted.
In 2025, the same evidence was tendered before the Adofiem-led command, but no prosecutorial action took place against Commando until Adofiem’s transfer. The public believes Commando is being treated as above the law because of his motorbike donations to the police.
Commando has a criminal-trial history at the High Court ‘2’ in Bolgatanga where he and three other accused persons were charged with stealing from a businessman, Zongdan Boyak Kolog, popularly known as Polo. The three other accused persons were Boazie Naabil alias Tiger, Suguru Naabil and Binaab Boazie.
They were also charged with conspiracy to commit crime, unlawful entry and causing unlawful damage. The items reportedly stolen were valued at Gh¢302,660.
Commando made a part payment of Gh¢100,000 to the victim (Polo) in 2014 as part of efforts to settle the case.
Commando’s nephew, Naab Ibrahim Awudu alias Gold Baron, was convicted and sentenced on Friday, 31 January 2025, at the circuit court in Bolgatanga for plotting an attack with some youth in Talensi on Polo.
Polo’s arrest and detention
Another issue is the arrest, alleged assault and detention of Polo by the Adofiem-led command.
Eight representatives of Polo’s firm and Polo were charged with abetment of crime as well as possession of firearms, explosives and ammunition.
The matter is in court and Polo has been on remand for about three weeks, held in police custody from Wednesday 4 June 2025, to date.
Countless residents are of a very strong view that the police planted the weapons on Polo and his men. They also are of the view that Polo is being unjustifiably punished by the police for refusing to surrender his legally acquired and licensed gold-mining concession to Earl International Group (Ghana) Gold Limited, a Chinese company operating in Talensi and formerly known as Shaanxi Mining Ghana Limited.
The residents and Polo’s lawyers from the Kulendi @ Law Maalo Chambers recently petitioned the Inspector-General of Police to investigate the regional police commander and retrieve the serial number on an AK-47 rifle said to have been found on Polo and conduct a search on the weapon.
Petition from Polo against Adofiem
Polo complained to the Upper East Regional Police Command in 2023 that Earl International Group (Ghana) Gold Limited had encroached on his concession in Talensi.
The regional police command advised him to file a suit against the company.
Following the advice, he went to High Court ‘2’ in the region’s capital, Bolgatanga, instituting Suit Number UE/BG/HC2/C1/06/2023 against the Chinese company and Ghana’s Minerals Commission.
He also added three individuals— Commando, Thomas Wuni Duanab, Elijah Nab Pardnyuun and Pardzie Nab—to the suit as defendants. Duanab is a former DCE of Talensi. Pardnyuun is the sub-divisional chief of Gban, a mining suburb of Talensi.
Polo applied for an interlocutory injunction order from the court restraining the defendants and their associates from trespassing on his concession.
The court granted his request on Thursday, 23 February 2023, ruling that he could continue with his business at the site. But some lawless members of that community subsequently threatened him, warning him to stay away from the concession. Those individuals took over the goldfield and began to illegally mine there as a gang.
Polo engaged the services of a private security firm called Sherlock Security Company— a decision grounded in a government policy— to protect his concession from the illegal miners.
The regional police commander prevented the security company from going to the site but promised to assist Polo to work there. The regional commander, instead of fulfilling that promise, “frustrated” Polo. This compelled Polo to lodge a petition dated 17th February 2025 with the Inspector-General of Police (IGP) against the regional commander.
Following that petition, the regional commander invited Polo to a meeting where he suggested that Polo engage the encroachers as his workers.
Polo agreed to legally register them as part of his enterprise and to share with them the proceeds realised from the concession by a mutual agreement.
The regional commander also made an arrangement with the district police command in Talensi to escort Polo to the site. But while Polo’s representatives were registering the trespassers on Saturday, 31 May 2025, some police officers and military personnel, accompanied by 40 young men from Gban, invaded Polo’s house at the site and ransacked it.
The officers arrested the representatives, eight in number, physically assaulted them and locked them in cells. The command also arrested Polo and threw him behind bars.
Polo and the eight representatives were put before court in Bolgatanga, charged with abetment of crime as well as possession of firearms, explosives and ammunition.
Some residents held a news conference, condemning the regional police commander and calling on the IGP to intervene.
“It is shameful that the police planted an AK-47 among other items in his house and displayed it in the news to incriminate him. Polo has only a registered pump-action gun in the house at the site.
“We suspect that the said AK-47 was smuggled into the items for purposes of staging criminality in the house. This is why the IGP must come in immediately. We plead with you IGP,” said the residents in their press statement.
Petition from the Kulendi Chambers lawyers against Adofiem
On Thursday, 5 June 2025, lawyers from the Kulendi @ Law Maalo Chambers, a highly reputable firm based in Accra, wrote a petition to the IGP, raising some serious allegations against the regional commander and asking him (the IGP) to investigate those claims.
The lawyers lodged the petition on behalf of their client, Polo. They detailed the efforts they made at the Ministry of Defence to secure Polo’s concession from illegal miners and how the regional commander allegedly thwarted those efforts.
The lawyers further drew the IGP’s attention to how the regional police commander reportedly lured Polo to his (Polo’s) concession, set him up, assaulted him, arrested him and denied him bail without any charge.
The lawyers quoted Polo in their petition to have said the development clearly was a setup rooted in malice, unlawful powers the commander arrogated to himself and an abuse of the office entrusted to him by the state.
“We also hasten to observe that Mr [Adofiem’s] actions as Regional Police Commander smack of the utmost bad faith. In contravention of his lawful duties he rather supports illegal miners against legitimate concession owners.
“His action against our client is anything but lawful. He lured our client to the concession and then turned around to arrest him without cause. We are also informed that the Police seized a legitimately registered pump action gun and unlawfully planted an AK 47 rifle pretending to have found same on the representatives of our client,” the lawyers told the IGP in the petition.
They added: “We request, respectfully, that you retrieve the serial number on the weapon and conduct further search on same.”
Source: Edward Adeti/Media Without Borders/mwbonline.org/Ghana
