“I feel like my life has been snuffed out,” these were the lamentations of the 80-year-old mother of the murdered Member of Parliament (MP) for the Mfantseman Constituency in the Central Region, Mr Ekow Quansah Hayford.
The mother, Mena Aba Attah, said as an old woman who depended on her only son for everything, she did not know how she is going to survive both physically and emotionally.
She said she is not only confused about his death, but the manner her 49-year-old son was killed.
“I have been maimed, I have been killed earlier than my time even though I’m alive. Who could have done this to us? What did we do to deserve this?” she said amid mourning.
The family has thus called for a speedy investigation and arrest of the perpetrators of the heinous crime.
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Incident
The New Patriotic Party (NPP) MP, Mr Hayford, was shot and killed in a suspected armed robbery attack on the Nkusukum Mankessim-Abeadze Duadze road around 1 a.m. on Friday when he was returning from a campaign tour.
The attack left four others injured; two with gunshot wounds, including the driver of the MP.
Also injured was one Patrick Asante, a driver in charge of a Rhino cargo vehicle loaded with oranges and two others in the Rhino vehicle.
Head of clan
The Head of the Anona Clan of Mankessim, Nana Kojo Nkrumah, queried how an aged mother would have to bury her son when it should have been the other way round.
He described the situation as very traumatic and called on the security apparatus to work to bring the perpetrators to book.
Nana Nkrumah made the appeal to the Central Regional Security Council, led by the Central Regional Minister, Mr Kwamena Duncan, when the team called on the family to console them.
The family head said such fatal attacks were gradually becoming rampant in the area and more pragmatic strategies should be put in place to keep the people safe.
Mr Duncan, who pushed back his tears, said the loss was not just a big blow to the family, but to the entire region and the country, considering that he was an MP.
The Regional Minister expressed optimism that the perpetrators would be apprehended.
Family in grief
It was an emotionally charged atmosphere when the Daily Graphic visited the mother’s house at Mankessim yesterday as relatives, friends and party supporters and executive members, including the Regional Minister, Mr. Kwamena Duncan, who had heard of the incident, thronged the house to either confirm the news or sympathise with the bereaved family.
The mother, surrounded by some family members, had covered herself with a cloth and was in a pensive mood, saying nothing for most of the time but it was easy to feel her agony.
Occasionally, she rubbed her clinched thumb over the other, and obviously, unable to bear the pain, gave out a scream.
That drew wailing reactions from the women while some of the men also shouted in agony.