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The Cheap, Dangerous Unregulated Taser Market In Ghana
Jul 5, 2024
There is a growing public security risk on the streets of Ghana’s capital, Accra as tasers are being sold in the streets and shops by unauthorised people to ordinary citizens who are not licensed or trained to handle and use these devices.
A taser is a device which can be used as a weapon to incapacitate people with about 50,000 volts of electric shock. They are usually used by trained and authorised security personnel to subdue people they deem to be behaving aggressively.
But on the streets of Accra, they are being sold to people who want to use them as weapons of defense against armed robbers and would-be rapists, for example.
Kofi Worlasi (not his real name), a senior medical officer in a public health facility in Accra, told The Fourth Estate that he bought a taser at the Dzorwulu traffic light on the N1 Highway and was quite surprised at the ease of the transaction.
He had initially wanted to buy a gun but found the process too cumbersome and costly. That was when he asked about tasers from friends who are police officers.
“Some policemen I spoke to about owning taser couldn’t give me any information so I was like even the police who are supposed to be in charge of this thing don’t even know whether there is any law or not,” Kofi said.
And then he heard he could get one in traffic. “I was shocked! Traffic? Taser? How?” he wondered.
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