Features
Is Ghana nurturing criminals and cannibals?
The crime wave in the country is on the ascendency in recent times with a number of armed robberies and murders being experienced in most communities across the country. Hardly a day passes with the country not recording some form of robberies involving mostly the youth.
It appears that the security network in the country continues to be weak, hence the robbers try to capitalise on the situation to terrorise innocent and defenceless citizens and rob them of their personal belongings.
FREQUENT KILLINGS OF INNOCENT CHILDREN FOR RITUALS
Apart from these robberies, innocent people, especially children are being killed indiscriminately either for ritual purposes or their body parts being traded for reasons best known to the perpetrators of these heinous crimes. We hear of reports trending on social media about body parts being used by chop bar operators to prepare food for customers without their knowledge.
Ritual murders which were things of the past seem to be rearing their ugly heads in recent times in this country. We heard of the Kasoa ritual murder in the Central Region on April 3, 2021, in which a 10-year-old boy was allegedly murdered by two suspected teenagers at a place known as Coca Cola near Lamptey Mills. According to reports the deceased, identified as Ishmael Mensah, was lured to an uncompleted building and murdered by the two suspected teenagers. That case is still pending before the law courts.
THE INFAMOUS CASE OF KOFI KYINTO AND OTHER MURDERS
The infamous case in the mid 1980s of a nine-year-old boy Kofi Kyinto who was beheaded by his uncle for ritual purpose as well as many ritual murder cases recorded in the western part of the country are still fresh in our minds. One cannot lose sight of Sefwi Boako, a farming community in the Sefwi Wiawso municipality of the Western Region where in May 2015, suspected cases of three people including an eight-year-old girl were murdered in cold blood for ritual purposes. Some vital parts of their bodies were missing when they were discovered.
Indeed, those frequent murders during that period, put the Sefwi area in a negative lime light and earned it a bad name as haven for ritual murders. Those from Sefwi area during that time, did not want to be associated with the town because of the negative development in the area. That was the period when the country, especially the western part was viewed internationally as not safe for habitation. However, with time, that negative viewpoint was erased and since then, Ghana has been an enviable destination of foreigners as they travel regularly to the country to transact business, especially in the Sefwi area which is noted for cocoa, timber and other mineral resources.
BACK TO PRIMITIVE YEARS
It appears that this country is again descending into that primitive years when people especially the youth were killed for ritual purposes by people who were interested in making quick money out of that wicked and callous practices.
The recent murder case at Abesim in the Bono Region of the country involving a 28-year-old man, Richard Appiah which has been a major topic for discussions in the media, has sent shivers down the spines of Ghanaians. The case is currently pending before the Kaneshie District Court in Accra.
The accused was alleged to have murdered Louis Agyeman and Stephen Boateng and buried some of the body parts at a farm. The court presided over by Madam Ama Adomako Kwakye, did not take the plea of the accused who had no legal representation when he appeared before it on September 15, 2021.
BACKGROUND OF ABESIM MURDER CASE
A police incident report published online revealed that the accused on Friday, August 20, went out with his stepfather’s son and never returned. He was subsequently arrested on suspicion of knowing the whereabouts of the deceased.
The police together with the complainant and the accused proceeded to the house where the accused resides at Alaska Abesim. Suprisingly, police found the deceased lying in a supine position in one of the rooms. The Crime Scene Management team led by the Regional Crime Officer, Superintendent Kenedy Edusei and the Sunyani District Police Commander, Deputy Superintendent of Police Francis Humado conducted a thorough search in the house. The search unveiled another dead body having been cut into pieces and kept in a double door fridge in one of the rooms. Meanwhile, three people have been arrested in connection with the case.
GHANAIANS DEMAND THOROUGH INVESTIGATIONS
This is a sensitive case which should not be allowed to die prematurely and we urge the police to do a thorough investigation into the case and unravel the full circumstances and arrest all those involved in the case for the law to take its course. The public will be interested to know what the body parts being kept in the fridge are meant for because it seems cruel to store these items in the freezer. Besides, the background of the suspects should be investigated to know whether they are involved in this illegal business.
This is a worrying signal for this country as the outside world will think negative about Ghana and, therefore, will reconsider decisions of doing brisk business in a country where human’s are killed and body parts kept in fridges for other things.
COUNTRY’S IMAGE BEING DENTED
The future of this country and the image are not anything good to write about because of the get-rich-quick attitude of our youth. They are not ready to engage in meaningful work to make earns meet. They are only interested in engaging in all forms of dirty and obnoxious practices to make a living. They can go at length to sacrifice lives if that can make them survive and that is dangerous for our country. It is a fact that the cost of living in this country is difficult or hard and people especially the youth are struggling it out to fend for themselves and their families. However, that should not be the reason innocent lives should be sacrificed to make a living.
CAUTION TO PATRONS OF FOOD JOINTS
This particular incident must serve as a caution and a guide to people who patronise food joints and chop bars in the country. Operators of some of these joints are capable of using all kinds of meat including human parts to prepare food for their patrons. We need to pay particular attention and be conscious of our eating joints and chop bars in order to avoid some of these wicked and callous behaviours from operators of these chop bars as well as these food vendors.
Indeed, the Acting Inspector-General of Police (IGP), COP George Akuffo Dampare has a difficult task to accomplish in order to stem the tide of this crime wave in our country. However, knowing the calibre of person he is and with the support from his team of officers and the public in general, he will be able to accomplish that task. We wish him all the best.
By Charles Neequaye
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Features
Tears of Ghanaman, home and abroad
The typical native of Sikaman is by nature a hospitable creature, a social animal with a big heart, a soul full of the milk of earthly goodness, and a spirit too loving for its own comfort.
Ghanaman hosts a foreign pal and he spends a fortune to make him very happy and comfortable-good food, clean booze, excellent accommodation and a woman for the night.
Sometimes the pal leaves without saying a “thank you but Ghanaman is not offended. He’d host another idiot even more splendidly. His nature is warm, his spirit benevolent. That is the typical Ghanaian and no wonder that many African-Americans say, “If you haven’t visited Ghana. Then you’ve not come to Africa.
You can even enter the country without a passport and a visa and you’ll be welcomed with a pot of palm wine.
If Ghanaman wants to go abroad, especially to an European country or the United States, it is often after an ordeal.
He has to doze in a queue at dawn at the embassy for days and if he is lucky to get through to being interviewed, he is confronted by someone who claims he or she has the power of discerning truth from lie.
In short Ghanaman must undergo a lie-detector test and has to answer questions that are either nonsensical or have no relevance to the trip at hand. When Joseph Kwame Korkorti wanted a visa to an European country, the attache studied Korkorti’s nose for a while and pronounced judgment.
“The way I see you, you won’t return to Ghana if I allow you to go. Korkorti nearly dislocated her jaw; Kwasiasem akwaakwa. In any case what had Korkorti’s nose got to do with the trip?
If Ghanaman, after several attempts, manages to get the visa and lands in the whiteman’s land, he is seen as another monkey uptown, a new arrival of a degenerate ape coming to invade civilized society. He is sneered at, mocked at and avoided like a plague. Some landlords abroad will not hire their rooms to blacks because they feel their presence in itself is bad business.
When a Sikaman publisher landed overseas and was riding in a public bus, an urchin who had the impudence and notoriety of a dead cockroach told his colleagues he was sure the black man had a tail which he was hiding in his pair of trousers. He didn’t end there. He said he was in fact going to pull out the tail for everyone to see.
True to his word he went and put his hand into the backside of the bewildered publisher, intent on grabbing his imaginary tail and pulling it out. It took a lot of patience on the part of the publisher to avert murder. He practically pinned the white miscreant on the floor by the neck and only let go when others intervene. Next time too…
The way we treat our foreign guests in comparison with the way they treat us is polar contrasting-two disparate extremes, one totally incomparable to the other. They hound us for immigration papers, deport us for overstaying and skinheads either target homes to perpetrate mayhem or attack black immigrants to gratify their racial madness
When these same people come here we accept them even more hospitably than our own kin. They enter without visas, overstay, impregnate our women and run away.
About half of foreigners in this country do not have valid resident permits and was not a bother until recently when fire was put under the buttocks of the Immigration Service
In fact, until recently I never knew Sikaman had an Immigration Service. The problem is that although their staff look resplendent in their green outfit, you never really see them anywhere. You’d think they are hidden from the public eye.
The first time I saw a group of them walking somewhere, I nearly mistook them for some sixth-form going to the library. Their ladies are pretty though.
So after all, Sikaman has an Immigration Service which I hear is now alert 24 hours a day tracking down illegal aliens and making sure they bound the exit via Kotoka International. A pat on their shoulder.
I am glad the Interior Ministry has also realised that the country has been too slack about who goes out or comes into Sikaman.
Now the Ministry has warned foreigners not to take the country’s commitment to its obligations under the various conditions as a sign of weakness or a source for the abuse of her hospitality.
“Ghana will not tolerate any such abuse,” Nii Okaija Adamafio, the Interior Minister said, baring his teeth and twitching his little moustache. He was inaugurating the Ghana Refugee and Immigration Service Boards.
He said some foreigners come in as tourists, investors, consultants, skilled workers or refugees. Others come as ‘charlatans, adventurers or plain criminals. “
Yes, there are many criminals among them. Our courts have tried a good number of them for fraud and misconduct.
It is time we welcome only those who would come and invest or tour and go back peacefully and not those whose criminal intentions are well-hidden but get exposed in due course of time.
This article was first published on Saturday March 14, 1998
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Features
Decisions have consequences
In this world, it is always important to recognise that every action or decision taken, has consequences.
It can result in something good or bad, depending on the quality of the decision, that is, the factors that were taken into account in the decision making.
The problem with a bad decision is that, in some instances, there is no opportunity to correct the result even though you have regretted the decision, which resulted in the unpleasant outcome.
This is what a friend of mine refers to as having regretted an unregretable regret. After church last Sunday, I was watching a programme on TV and a young lady was sharing with the host, how a bad decision she took, had affected her life immensely and adversely.
She narrated how she met a Caucasian and she got married to him. The white man arranged for her to join him after the marriage and processes were initiated for her to join her husband in UK. It took a while for the requisite documentation to be procured and during this period, she took a decision that has haunted her till date.
According to her narration, she met a man, a Ghanaian, who she started dating, even though she was a married woman.
After a while her documents were ready and so she left to join her husband abroad without breaking off the unholy relationship with the man from Ghana.
After she got to UK, this man from Ghana, kept pressuring her to leave the white man and return to him in Ghana. The white man at some point became a bit suspicious and asked about who she has been talking on the phone with for long spells, and she lied to him that it was her cousin.
Then comes the shocker. After the man from Ghana had sweet talked her continuously for a while, she decided to leave her husband and return to Ghana after only three weeks abroad.
She said, she asked the guy to swear to her that he would take care of both her and her mother and the guy swore to take good care of her and her mother as well as rent a 3-bedroom flat for her. She then took the decision to leave her husband and return to Ghana.
She told her mum that she was returning to Ghana to marry the guy in Ghana. According to her, her mother vigorously disagreed with her decision and wept.
She further added that her mum told her brother and they told her that they were going to tell her husband about her intentions.
According to her, she threatened that if they called her husband to inform him, then she would commit suicide, an idea given to her by the boyfriend in Ghana.
Her mum and brother afraid of what she might do, agreed not to tell her husband. She then told her husband that she was returning to Ghana to attend her Grandmother’s funeral.
The husband could not understand why she wanted to go back to Ghana after only three weeks stay so she had to lie that in their tradition, grandchildren are required to be present when the grandmother dies and is to be buried.
She returned to Ghana; the flat turns into a chamber and hall accommodation, the promise to take care of her mother does not materialise and generally she ends up furnishing the accommodation herself. All the promises given her by her boyfriend, turned out to be just mere words.
A phone the husband gave her, she left behind in UK out of guilty conscience knowing she was never coming back to UK.
Through that phone and social media, the husband found out about his boyfriend and that was the end of her marriage.
Meanwhile, things have gone awry here in Ghana and she had regretted and at a point in her narration, was trying desperately to hold back tears. Decisions indeed have consequences.
NB: ‘CHANGE KOTOKA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT TO KOFI BAAKO INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT’
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