Public Agenda NewsPaper Ghana's only Advocacy & Development Newspaper
Very soon we will all line up, to be killed. This time around, we will not wait for the contract killers to plan their murders. We will present ourselves to them, lining up in front of their homes, and ask them to kill us, one person after the other, in any manner they so desire, for we want to, at least, become witnesses to our own death, since there are often times no witnesses in the incidences of the murders happening in Ghana.
The last one year or so has been gruesome. We began the year 2018 with Winneba waking up to a shock, of the murder of a woman who was believed to be returning home from town. The killers of Mary Bondze appeared to have hacked her with cutlasses to the neck, and to the head, and gotten her to die not too far away from her own home.
In the last two months alone, there have been three obvious cases of contract killings in Ghana, ranging from managers of Ghana Water Company, Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority, and the most recent one being Ahmed Suale, the Journalist whose murder has shaken international foundations.
The President has offered words of condolences and asked the security agencies to find the killers of this Journalist. I hope that with the president adding his voice, the action towards the apprehension of those who took away the life of the Journalist would be swift.
But therein lies my problem. In the last ten years, I have received not less than 100 death threats from not less than 20 different sources. I have reported most of these death threats to the police. None of them has ever resulted in the prosecution of the suspects. In fact, in some of the cases, the Police have shown contempt to my reports. Some of those who have issued threats on my life are known faces around, yet those who threaten to walk proudly everyone they go.
Immediately following the last set of death threats was the break-in of my office, and the ransacking of documents belonging to my organization, Challenging Heights, and its sister companies. One thing seems to be leading to the other, while no one is being arrested.
I have been lucky to have remained alive. I don’t know what the next one year or so holds for me, but I have never been such resolute in my life, in my quest to stand for the truth, and to resist the oppressors’ rule, for we cannot will our destiny in the hands of those whose gratification it is to profit off of wrong actions.
I believe in wealth creation. I believe that those who work hard, and fairly, must be rewarded for their ingenuity. But I don’t believe in having monies that are ill-gotten, through blackmail, power play, killings and manipulation. As someone who grew up in the village, I saw everyone worked for his food. And I saw fathers and mothers teaching their children the values of working hard for what you eat.
I appreciate the President’s call for swift action on Ahmed Suale’s murder, but I have wondered if the innocent woman who died in Winneba also deserves the President’s voice? The woman is believed to have been killed just around 7 pm, and where the incidence happened is not an isolated area; it is a crowded location. And the Police have not said the killers are suspected to have used a vehicle, or even a motorbike in their operations. So it is possible, most likely, that someone might have seen the incidence while it happened. How deep enough is the investigation on this woman’s death so that those who know something about the death could feel confident enough to volunteer information?
Some of these killings seem to have been so planned, so carefully executed, and so sophisticated in covering their tracks. Such sophistication deployed in these murder instances makes Ghana more and more unsafe for everyone. It does appear that for each murder case, there is either political power or financial power or both, behind.
I believe a time has come for Ghana to adopt a compulsory post-secondary school military training for every citizen, especially now that everyone is likely to have the opportunity to access secondary school education. We could develop this project as part of either a national service scheme, or a NABCO of a sort, or anything that trains all of us in basic security intelligence, and self-defence, to ensure that when the system fails in delivering justice, the citizens could take arms and defend themselves.
I have received a series of security training from Protection International, and Frontline Defenders of Dublin. I had not put any value on my personal security until I had faced series of death threats, and physical attempts on my life; it was then I realized how real death could be when a fellow citizen is determined to end your life.
And my study in intelligence and security revealed how these killers implement their plans so remotely, so far away from themselves, that it is nearly impossible to include them as suspects. And that is why I am not too sure if Kennedy Agyagpong is a suspect in this Ahmed Suale’s murder incidence. Of course, he is a person of interest in the case, because of his lack of good judgment in exposing the victim to danger, but no sane person would execute such a planned killing of someone who he has had such a high profile level of confrontation with.
We are sitting on an explosive time bomb, my brother. This our democracy is failing. What we have in Ghana, presently, could best be described as powertics underwritten by monetics, two concepts that involves the waiting to come of four years after four years, to queue the citizens to vote for those who have the ability to kill their ways into victory, then we wait for the next four years to repeat the same shameful thing at the polls, voting for those who use the same power we gave them to suppress those who voted.
Those who control money are linked with those who control power. In most of the cases, those who control money are the same as those who have power. The latest strategy is to eliminate anyone who is an obstacle for the power and money they are accumulating, and they are willing to go any length to hold on to their illegitimate largess.
Once powertics and monetics meet the agenda is to instil fear in those who would resist their oppression. Threaten them. Frustrate them. Cut off their income sources. Scandalise them. Maim them, and ultimately, kill them. Let us be the only persons who have everything, and whose authority is accepted by all. Thereafter let us control the oil, the gas, and the cocoa, and let everyone else queue to plead for favours.
The battle is still the Lord’s!
