<<Print>>

The residents of Agba-We, Labadi, in the Greater Accra Region were yesterday thrown into a state of mourning and sorrow when a 19-year-old Visual Arts Grade I graduate, Moses Okpoti, was found dead near the Labadi Beach after drowning on Wednesday afternoon. Okpoti was said to have gone to the beach on Wednesday around 1.00pm in the afternoon with some friends to swim, apparently after working on some materials for his customers. According to an eyewitness account, in the course of the relaxation he decided to swim, saying that shortly afterwards, those who went with him noticed that Okpoti was nowhere to be found in the sea which was a high tide. The eyewitness told GO that Okpoti�s friends therefore came home to inform some family members about the incident. Subsequently, the family members together with other friends embarked on a search at the shore immediately after hearing the news but they could not find him. Some family friends who spoke to the GO also said they visited the beach yesterday (Thursday) morning again to see if they could at least see if they could find him but all to no avail. In the afternoon of yesterday however, a group of guys who came to the seashore to look again for their friend Okpoti said they search and search but could not find him. However a member of the group, well known as Gabriel Odartei Lamptey said he later saw an object in the sea and told the friends that it was a human being. According to him, his friends did not believe him when he told them that the object floating on the sea was a dead body so they should help him bring it ashore. �I told them that what they were seeing was a human being but they did not believe me, I have rescued dying people and removed dead bodies in the sea a number of times so when I see a dead body floating on the sea I can identify it,� he told GO. Odartei Lamptey said he later swam to where the �object� was and brought out Okpoti. �When I go to where the body was I noticed it was him, he said, adding, �I therefore carried him to the shore but upon my reaching the shore I was so tired I called those there to help me but they all run away,� he said. Family members could not control their tears but broke down and cried as they mentioned the dead�s name, while others also sung dirges. Hundreds and hundreds of people in the community who heard the news rushed to the scene. At the time of going to the press the police had come there to examine the body and see how best they could convey the body from the police.