Bring The Perpetrators To Book

Bimbilla Conflict

We wish there were more apt words to convey the pain with which most Ghanaians received news about the stupid and senseless bloodletting in the Bimbilla conflict other than ‘barbaric and criminal.’

It is incomprehensible that men would reverse our national progress to such a primitive mode and expect us not to lash at them and to ask the law to deal harshly with them, more so when victims are poor women and innocent children just minding their own businesses.

To think that Islam abhors the killing of women and children during war even makes us more amazed at the nature of those behind the dastardly act. This is a mainly Muslim dominated area. We are at a loss as to whether these persons understand the import of Islam to which they claim to belong.

No society can progress without peace and for the brains behind such wicked actions in the name of chieftaincy is to attempt reducing an otherwise decent community into an animal kingdom.

How intractable is the misunderstanding that it cannot be settled without resorting to such murder in the name of civil strife?

Snippets of information emanating from Bimbilla suggest that somebody with traditional authority was partly responsible for the security breach which led to this crazy situation we find ourselves in. Whoever that person is his standing in the Nanumba traditional setup, notwithstanding, must be held responsible for the blood of innocent persons that has been spilled recklessly and senselessly.

Time has come when we should say adieu to such madness clothed in the garb of chieftaincy misunderstanding.

Schools have been shut, women displaced and now living in nearby villages as internally displaced persons.  Stories restricted to infamous war-torn regions of the world are being played out, courtesy of irresponsible and bloodthirsty individuals. For how long can we tolerate this nonsense in a country which seeks to move forward?

They neither appreciate the cost of deploying troops to these strife-torn parts of the country nor the image implications thereof who engineer the acts of barbarism which threaten national security wantonly.

Surveying the dead bodies littered across Bimbilla –  an important yam producing part of the country –  especially a corpse in flames, breaks the heart and triggers a lot of rhetoric questions.

The security agents must deal decisively with those who fan strife in the country. Let nobody, especially politicians, intervene when suspects identified are being arraigned because doing so would be killing the deterrence needed at this time.

The police and the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) should do more in the area of intelligence gathering in such parts of the country prone to civil strife. As mentioned in an earlier paragraph, the security agencies, especially the BNI, was in the know about a looming trouble. The traditional title holder when he for instance, refused to heed good security counsel not to go ahead with the enskinning of a sub-chief, should have been forcefully stopped from going ahead. He could have been ordered to leave the area for a while and warned sternly not to dare.