Ghana Police Arrest Man Who Confessed to the Wa Killings of Night Watchmen
Shariff Abdulai, 30, arrested October 6, 2025, told police he killed 15 people in Wa since 2021 and others in Bole, Banda Nkwanta and Bamboi.
Published
For four years, someone had been killing the night watchmen of Wa. Police in Ghana's Upper West Region counted 15 murder cases in 2021 and 2022 alone, most of them watchmen attacked on duty, strangled or struck on the head with blocks. On October 8, 2025, the regional police commander, ACP Francis Yiribaare, said a suspect was finally in custody and had confessed.
The man, Shariff Abdulai, 30, an ex-convict and cobbler also known as Saani, had been arrested on October 6 at Adabiya, a suburb of Wa, with the help of an assemblyman and residents of Dondoli. "During questioning, the suspect confessed to killing 15 people in Wa Municipality since 2021," the commander said. "He also admitted to killing three madmen and two watchmen at Bole, one madman in Banda Nkwanta, and a madwoman in Bamboi." Abdulai said his victims were mostly watchmen and, in some cases, mentally ill people he targeted at night, and that he carried their bodies away on his shoulder and buried them in the bush.
The break came with the most recent killing. On the evening of September 21, 2025, Issah Yahaya, 55, was found dead in a motor mechanic's shop at Dobile, near the Wa market. Police found a broken piece of cement block mixed with blood, a knife placed on his face and a bloodstained block behind the shop. On October 3 they arrested a 25-year-old, Mahamuda Lamin, in connection with that killing, and leads from his interrogation pointed to a second man. When Abdulai was arrested, police said, he had Yahaya's keypad mobile phone and solar-powered radio. A search of his hideout in the bush near the Wa airstrip turned up a cutlass with specially shaped edges, a bicycle and a sack of meat, all believed to be linked to his victims.
Lamin was remanded by the Wa Magistrate Court to reappear on October 21. Police said forensic analysis of the recovered items was continuing and that they were still working to establish whether anyone else had been involved. Over the four years of killings, more than 500 officers had been sent to the area at one time or another to find whoever was responsible.
At this stage Abdulai had confessed to police but had not been tried; the counts above are his admissions as the police described them, and the 15 cases the region recorded in 2021 and 2022 are not necessarily the same 15 he confessed to in Wa. Reports spell his name Sherif, Sheriff and Shariff; this site uses Shariff, the spelling in the later court reporting. Police and news accounts of this stage of the case are from Citi Newsroom and the Ghana News Agency; no police release could be opened directly.
Sources
- Wa serial murder suspect confesses to killing 15 people since 2021, Citi Newsroom (Martina Maasonoo Zaabog)
- Two key suspects arrested in connection with Wa murder cases, Ghana News Agency (Joyce Danso)