A Deputy Minister for Local Government, Decentralisation, and Rural Development, Ekow Vincent Assafuah, has described the January 2, 2025, Kantamanto market fire outbreak as politically motivated.
According to him, his investigation has led him to suspect a polling agent of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the just-ended general elections of being the mastermind behind the market fire.
Speaking on Asempa FM, monitored by GhanaWeb on Wednesday, Assafuah, who is also a lawyer, stated that the suspect, a man named Quaicoo, popularly known as Oboy, had given signals about the disaster before and after the elections.
“Based on my investigation, you will realize that those who set the market on fire did it in such a way that it would be very difficult for anyone, including Fire Service personnel, to salvage any of the items being burnt. I have already written to the Ghana Police Service. There is this young man at Kantamanto called Quaicoo, aka Oboy. He was a polling station agent for the NDC in Odododiodoo. This gentleman, before and after the elections, gave signals, and in his own words, as narrated to me, said, ‘As for Kantamanto, we will all lose it.’ These have been some of his words to friends and other people at Kantamanto.”
He continued, “Anybody who knows Kantamanto will tell you that these are people who live as one community. This is a man whose wife divorced him a few weeks ago, and because the financial support from his wife is no longer coming, he is now being supported financially by some people at Kantamanto. But due to politicking…”
The lawmaker added, “For the purposes of protecting the identity of the person who provided this information, I will keep their name confidential. A woman at Kantamanto told me that on Wednesday around 11 p.m., she saw this man passing by, and not long after, the market was in flames. So clearly, based on the narration from this woman and corroborating accounts from friends of this man named Quaicoo, aka Oboy, I am convinced that this incident was politically motivated.”
A devastating fire ravaged the Kantamanto market, causing extensive damage to several shops and properties.
The fire, which broke out around 1 a.m. on Thursday, January 2, 2024, was eventually contained by officers of the Ghana National Fire Service after 13 fire tenders were deployed to the scene.
Footage from the scene shows the market engulfed in smoke, with the fire visibly wreaking havoc.
The Public Relations Officer of the Ghana National Fire Service, Alex King Nartey, confirmed in an interview that no casualties have been reported so far.
The cause of the fire is still under investigation, with authorities working to determine the source of the blaze and assess the extent of the damage.
