CHRAJ finally engages Ada Songor Lagoon brutality victims after The Fourth Estate’s report

Nearly three years after victims of alleged salt mining brutalities at the Songor Lagoon in Ada petitioned the Commission for Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), the Commission has finally moved to investigate, after The Fourth Estate’s publication.

A four-member team of investigators, led by the Head of Business and Human Rights at CHRAJ, Clement Kadogbe, visited Toflokpo, one of the communities at the centre of the alleged brutalities to interview the victims last Thursday.

In all, the team interviewed almost 20 victims, including chiefs and opinion leaders. They narrated graphic details of assaults, destruction of properties, theft, and showed evidence of the abuse they suffered in the hands of persons suspected to be security personnel from Electrochem Ghana Limited, Ghana Police Service, and the Military.

Many of the victims fought back tears as painful memories poured out. The air was heavy with grief and anger. Occasionally, the room fell into silence as the investigators listened intently.

“That day was the worst of my life. I was in the bathhouse undressing to bathe when armed men suddenly barged in. They grabbed me by the beads around my waist and dragged me out half-naked into the open, while the police held a camera and took pictures of my shame,” a complainant, Christiana Mordzifa Anim, recalled with anger and tears. 

Describing her experience as humiliating, she said she was dragged into a waiting pickup truck with others, detained in a cell for weeks, and prosecuted for over three years before the case was eventually dismissed by the court.

“Up to now, the memory fills me with pain and embarrassment. I feel bad every single day for what they did to me. But I have no money to fight powerful people,” she lamented. “That is why today I am hopeful. The fact that you [CHRAJ] have finally come shows our case has weight. I pray you will get to the bottom of all the suffering and bring us justice.”

She was not alone. Elkanah Otu Anim, 29, another complainant, told investigators from CHRAJ that he has been battling persistent ill health and daily pain after being shot in the head by private security personnel linked to Electrochem Ghana Limited, alongside some police officers.

He was referred to the Ridge Hospital from the Battor Catholic Hospital in the Volta Region after the Ada East District Hospital said his condition was beyond them when they detected pellets lodged in his head.

“At Ridge Hospital, doctors managed to remove two of the pellets, leaving five. One of them, they said, could cause blindness if removed due to its proximity to the veins around my eye,” he recounted, his body visibly shaking.

He added that the incident has left him disabled— unable to work or even walk under the sun, making it extremely difficult to earn a living and support his family as a salt miner.

Recounting his ordeal, another victim, Michael Lomotey Dameh,32, described a terrifying night raid that left him traumatized.

He said his house was raided in the night, with many items destroyed or stolen.

“They came at night like thieves, chasing me through the darkness with guns and torches. I ran for my life, but they caught me. They broke into my house, stole all the money I had saved, smashed my television, and destroyed everything inside,” he recalled. “They set a car and a motorcycle on fire on my compound. Everything I worked for was gone in one night.

Many victims lifted their clothing to show the CHRAJ team gunshot and machete wounds, with some claiming they had suffered deformities and loss of function in parts of their bodies.

Sampson Agbove, who sustained multiple gunshot wounds during the 2021 clashes involving security forces, spoke with visible pain as he described how the pellets have continued to torment him since the incident. His voice was low and strained.

“I was shot several times in my body that day in 2021 while we were only trying to protect what belongs to us,” he said. “Since then, I have not been able to work as I used to. The pain comes and goes like fire in my bones. Sometimes it is so severe that I cannot even stand straight or carry water to bathe. My health keeps deteriorating, and the pellets are still inside me,” he said. “I have no money to go for proper medical check-ups or surgery to remove them. Every day I remember what they did to me. I used to be strong, providing for myself from the salt we harvest. Now I am just surviving.”

The CHRAJ officials nodded soberly, occasionally asking follow-up questions and showing victims photographs and pieces of evidence from the petition for identification. Some community members wiped tears as the stories unfolded, with their pain still fresh despite the passage of time.

CHRAJ’s visit to the community follows The Fourth Estate’s February 2026 report, which highlighted CHRAJ’s apparent delay in engaging the nine complainants almost three years after the petition was filed.

Days after the publication, lawyers for the victims said CHRAJ had expressed willingness to engage them for the first time. The victims fixed a date and channeled it to CHRAJ through their lawyers. 

Mr Kadogbe explained that upon receiving the petition, CHRAJ conducted an initial assessment before admitting the case for full-scale investigation.

According to him, the Commission wrote to the respondents, some of whom have replied, while others have not. He said the field visit allowed the team to hear directly from seven of the nine complainants, as well as other victims, witnesses, chiefs, and opinion leaders.

“We are very happy with the level of information they have given to us,” Kadugbe told The Fourth Estate after the engagement.

The team was shown evidence, including photographs, which the victims were asked to identify.

He emphasized that CHRAJ remains impartial and will hear the other side before concluding.

“We must also hear the other side… whether or not they come with their side, we will still go on with our work,” he noted, referencing the audi alteram partem rule.

Mr Kadugbe also linked the investigation to Ghana’s recently launched National Action Plan on Business and Human Rights, which he stressed that businesses must respect human rights while operating.

“This exercise has been an eye-opener,” he added.

On timelines, Mr Kadogbe was cautious, explaining that, “I will be hesitant in giving timelines because… sometimes you come across new information that you need to explore further.”

He said the Commission may need to return to probe additional issues. However, he assured victims of the Commission’s seriousness, adding that “We attach every seriousness to it and we’ll give it all the seriousness that it deserves.”

A call for the revocation of the Electrochem agreement

The Chief of Toflokpo, Nene Mailo Dadebom Anim II, also a complainant and a victim who suffered a broken arm during a raid in 2022, expressed relief at the arrival of CHRAJ.

“I’m glad that, at long last, CHRAJ is here. Justice should prevail. They have tortured me, molested me, and disgraced me.”

He called for perpetrators to face trial and punitive measures.

Nene Mailo appealed to President John Dramani Mahama, Parliament, and the Speaker to review and revoke the lease granted to Electrochem.

“Songor Lagoon and the salt over here is our only livelihood… without salt, there is no Ada,” he said.

Other victims at the gathering recounted their experiences in response to questions from the CHRAJ team, describing ongoing trauma from the alleged assaults and the economic hardship caused by restricted access to the lagoon.

Centuries-old livelihood under threat

The Songor Lagoon is West Africa’s largest natural salt deposit and has sustained the Ada people for generations.

Artisanal miners, many of them women, have harvested salt using traditional methods and traded it across Ghana.

In November 2020, the government granted a 41,000-acre mining lease to Electrochem Ghana Limited, owned by businessman Daniel McKorley, also known as McDan.

The company was positioned as a major investor capable of producing up to one million metric tons of salt annually.

However, the concession has been at the center of a bitter conflict. Indigenes allege that it effectively excludes them from their ancestral resource, leading to forceful evictions, restricted access, and repeated clashes with the company’s taskforce, police, and military personnel.

The July 14, 2023, petition by nine complainants, including Nene Mailo Dadebom Anim II (the chief of Toflokpo), Christiana Modzifah Anim, Bertha Agbovi, a teenager at the time, Michael Lomotey Dameh, Sampson Agbove, Elikana Otu Anim, and others, detailed a series of alleged human rights violations: arbitrary arrests, beatings, shootings, machete attacks, property destruction, and humiliating detentions between 2021 and 2023.

The petition named Electrochem’s security personnel, the Ghana Police Service, former Ministers of Interior and Defence, among others, as parties to the alleged abuses.