Some stories are disgusting. The episode in which a teacher sodomised 18 students is one of such stories to hit the Ghanaian society recently.
With the convict passing a psychiatric test to isolate a mental challenge, we are left with no option than to whine over how Natogmah Yamousa Otabil could have as the story put it, ‘groomed and defiled 18 students’ of a JHS over a long period.
That, in the course of the defilement, the convict injured the anal region of his victims adds to our pain and of course the families of the students also.
Why did it have to take so long before the case came to the front burner and the teacher’s eventual arrest?
The times when teachers were a paragon of excellent moral conduct are long gone. Teachers, like other members of society, have had bad nuts infiltrate their ranks. Their conduct, as they teach the kids in schools, should be subtly monitored to isolate anomalies.
Parents should take interest in matters about their children. Conversation with the children will expose anomalies which need the immediate attention of the authorities.
We believe that some of the convict’s victims would have manifested abnormal traits following the injuries they suffered in their anal regions to warrant the immediate attention of their parents.
We should also encourage our children to develop the habit of reporting unusual behaviour from persons such as teachers they meet in their daily movements.
We are appalled that the children have had to suffer such a tragedy ,one whose fallouts could be lifelong.
Have we failed the children as their parents, guardians and teachers? It appears we have, for which failure they deserve our remorse.
School heads, in particular, must show more interest in the children in their trust than they have ever been. We are in unusual times, a reality which demands more serious actions on our parts as teachers, parents and guardians.
The schools are no longer as safe as they used to be because, bad nuts have infiltrated the teaching profession as they have others.
These anomalous conducts can be stemmed only when we accept that they exist. If we live in denial of them, we would not be able to address them as we should.
In the Wenchi Municipality, a health director has disclosed that in the first half of this year, some three hundred and thirty teenagers have been impregnated.
We have been inflicted by a moral decadence of worrying proportions. The subject is not being discussed, leaving it to become a norm.
Our chiefs, faith leaders, opinion leaders and even parents, must come together to brainstorm over this subject with a view to finding a lasting solution to it. With social media and smart phones now, the added features of our social architecture addressing the decadence is certainly going to be a herculean task.