Accra Court Remands Okada Rider Over GH¢37,000 Gold Necklace Robbery

A gold necklace worth GH¢37,000 vanished in a roadside attack that began as a commute and ended in a hospital bed, a police file, and a remand order from the Accra Circuit Court.

The accused, Clifford Scott Nkrumah, was sent back into custody over the robbery and a separate charge of causing harm to Manasseh Appiah-Nuako, a businessman from Ashongman Estate. Police said the attack happened on April 6, 2026, while Appiah-Nuako was driving from Ashongman Estate toward Achimota, when Nkrumah and an alleged accomplice, Sumaila Mumuni, also known as “Can do,” forced his vehicle to stop.

The prosecution said the men used sticks, stones and a knife, dragged Appiah-Nuako from his car and beat him before snatching the necklace. He sustained injuries and was rushed to hospital. The alleged accomplice remained at large as the court ordered Nkrumah to return on May 12, 2026.

The case carries the hard edge of a robbery docket, but it also speaks to a quieter truth about gold in urban life: a visible chain can become a target the moment traffic slows and escape routes narrow. In this instance, the jewel’s afterlife was almost as revealing as the attack itself. Police said the necklace was sold on April 8, 2026, to a goldsmith at Kwame Nkrumah Circle for GH¢9,100. The goldsmith later handed it over to police after realising it had been stolen.

Nkrumah reportedly admitted the offence in his caution statement, deepening a case that now sits at the junction of street violence, stolen goods and the informal gold trade that can absorb plunder quickly if no alarm is raised in time. For wearers of high-value chains, the lesson is stark. Gold that announces itself in traffic, taxi ranks or on exposed routes can draw opportunistic violence long before it becomes an item of resale.

The remand comes against a wider policing picture in which jewellery crime has remained stubbornly expensive. Police recently said four suspects were arrested in connection with a string of armed robberies targeting jewellery shops in Greater Accra and the Western Region between April and October 2025, with reported losses including GH¢2 million at Westlands, GH¢17 million in Takoradi, GH¢1.8 million near Nyaho Clinic at Dzorwulu and GH¢2 million at East Legon. Investigators also tied the 2024 Adabraka Gold Jewellery Shop robbery to an estimated GH¢7.5 million in losses.

Taken together, the cases show how gold, whether worn at the throat or locked behind a counter, still sits at the center of a criminal economy that moves fast and leaves victims with little more than a court date.