Murder suspect gunned down

Front Page: Daily Graphic, November 21, 2009.
Story: Albert K. Salia
A murder suspect who was on the police wanted list for allegedly gunning down the late Godfrey Cobblah, a senior officer of the Internal Revenue Service, in 2005, has himself been shot dead.
Mallam Yahaya, the deceased, was shot dead on Wednesday as he advanced towards an unarmed policeman after he (Yahaya) had been ordered to drop a knife he had pulled on a chief at Mamprobi.
Yahaya, a known land guard, allegedly killed the late Cobblah, then a senior administrator of the IRS at Achiaman, near Amasaman, on Boxing Day in 2005 when the officer, who was also an international boxing referee/judge, had gone to inspect some parcels of land purchased by the IRS for its staff.
The suspect was said to have absconded to Smere, a town in Benin, after murdering Cobblah, after which the Ghana Police Service declared him wanted and placed a GH¢2,000 bounty on his head.
A combined team of security operatives from Ghana, Togo and Benin tried several times to apprehend Yahaya as he shuttled from one country to another to avoid arrest.
Briefing the Daily Graphic on last Wednesday’s incident in which Yahaya was killed, the Director of Public Affairs of the Ghana Police Service, Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Kwasi Ofori, said the police received a call that the life of a chief at Mamprobi, identified as Nii Ashun Gyekye, was in danger as someone had entered his house and pulled a knife on him, threatening to kill him.
He said the caller also indicated that the deceased was demanding GH¢10,000 from the chief or he would kill him.
He said Yahaya had earlier, through such threats, collected GH¢4,000 from the chief.
DSP Ofori said on reaching the scene, the police ordered Yahaya to drop the knife but he refused and rather turned towards an unarmed policeman with the knife.
He said the heavily built Yahaya was about to pounce on the policeman when another armed police man shot him.
It would be recalled that on December 26, 2005, Cobblah was murdered in cold blood at the site of the land purchased by workers of the IRS, following which Yahaya was declared wanted as the suspected murderer.