- Racecourse Demolition Puts State Land Protection Under Scrutiny as Turf Club Petitions President Mahama
The Accra Turf Club has taken its dispute over the demolition of the Borteyman Racecourse directly to President John Dramani Mahama, escalating a controversy that has moved from a land dispute into a broader test of state authority, property rights and accountability.
Members of Ghana’s horse racing community marched through Accra before presenting petitions to the Presidency and the ministries responsible for sports and lands, demanding an investigation and the restoration of the club’s possession of the property.
The petition follows the August 22 demolition of structures at the racecourse, an incident now under criminal investigation.
The Turf Club alleges that about 200 armed men, accompanied by police officers and heavy machinery, entered the Borteyman facility and demolished more than 100 horse stables as well as other buildings, track infrastructure and utilities.
Those allegations have not been judicially determined, but the scale of the reported destruction has intensified pressure on the authorities to establish who authorised the operation and on what legal basis.
The club has characterised the incident as a forceful takeover of a facility it says it occupies under longstanding arrangements with the state.
Receiving the petition on behalf of the Presidency, presidential staffer Nana Yaa Jantuah told the demonstrators that their concerns would be placed before the President.
“His Excellency, John Dramani Mahama is going to get this petition and he is going to get to the bottom of this so you will hear from him in due course,” she said.
She also said the President was opposed to unlawful possession of state lands, placing the dispute within the government’s wider responsibility to protect public property and ensure that competing claims are resolved through lawful processes.
The controversy has already produced significant consequences within law enforcement. The Criminal Investigation Department arrested Dr Clemence Gyato on September 10 in connection with the demolition and reported takeover, with police seeking to establish the circumstances surrounding the operation and those responsible.
The arrest followed the interdiction of DSP Alhassan Malaika Jibril over his alleged involvement, including claims that he provided security and led police personnel during the exercise; those allegations remain subject to investigation.
The emerging question is therefore no longer simply who claims title or possession over the Borteyman land. Investigators must also determine whether a demolition of this scale was authorised by a competent public body, whether lawful procedures were followed, and how serving police officers allegedly came to be involved in providing security for the operation.
The answers will be important because the credibility of land administration depends not only on who eventually proves ownership, but also on whether disputes are resolved through courts and statutory institutions rather than physical possession backed by force.
The Accra Turf Club says its claim to the site is supported by a relocation agreement with government and a 2005 High Court order which, according to the club, directed the Lands Commission to demarcate 46.64 hectares for its use.
That account has been presented by the club as the legal foundation for its continued occupation of the racecourse, but the material cited publicly does not by itself settle any competing claim to the land.
The dispute will therefore require a clear examination of the relevant court orders, land records, government agreements and any subsequent transactions affecting the property.
That documentary trail matters because Borteyman sits within an area of Greater Accra where land values have risen sharply and competing interests in public and institutional land can carry substantial commercial implications. The controversy therefore raises questions extending beyond horse racing, including how state land is allocated, how historic grants are protected and what safeguards prevent public or institutional property from being transferred or occupied without transparent authority.
A credible resolution will require more than political assurances; it will require clarity over title, possession and the lawful chain of decisions affecting the site.
For the Turf Club, the immediate concern is also sporting and economic. The demolition reportedly destroyed stables and racecourse infrastructure essential to the operation of horse racing, threatening trainers, horse owners, stable workers and others whose livelihoods depend on the facility.
The club is therefore seeking not only an investigation but also restoration of possession and protection against further interference with the land.
The incident has also placed the Ghana Police Service under scrutiny because of the alleged participation of police personnel in the operation. The Service has already announced the interdiction of an officer in connection with the alleged demolition, while the CID investigation is continuing.
That response is significant because any finding that serving officers facilitated a disputed private or commercial land operation without lawful authority would raise serious questions about command, deployment procedures and the use of state security in civil disputes.
For the Mahama administration, the case presents an early test of how firmly government intends to deal with contested state lands and politically sensitive property disputes.
Nana Yaa Jantuah’s assurance that the President would “get to the bottom” of the matter raises expectations that the Presidency will demand a clear institutional account rather than allow the case to disappear into prolonged administrative exchanges.
The government will also have to avoid prejudicing the police investigation or any legal proceedings while ensuring that the relevant ministries and the Lands Commission provide the records necessary to establish the facts.
There is a wider policy lesson in the dispute. Ghana’s recurring land conflicts are often made more difficult by incomplete records, overlapping claims, historical allocations and weak enforcement, creating space for parties to attempt to establish control on the ground before legal questions are fully resolved.
The Borteyman case illustrates why digitised land records, transparent public-land registers and stronger coordination between the Lands Commission, security agencies and the courts are essential to preventing disputes from escalating into demolitions and arrests.
The immediate issue before President Mahama is whether the Turf Club’s claimed rights to the 46.64-hectare site remain legally enforceable and whether the August operation complied with the law.
But the larger question is more fundamental: who had the authority to send men, machinery and police protection onto a disputed racecourse and destroy infrastructure before the dispute had been publicly resolved?
Until that question is answered, Borteyman will remain not merely a controversy over a racecourse, but a test of whether land disputes in Ghana are settled by institutions or by whoever is able to take physical control first.
