“Former President John Agyekum Kufuor has attributed the murder of a 10-year-old boy by two teenagers to the increase in attention given to “fraudulent” individuals on various television stations” (6th April 2021, myjoyonline).
The Former President’s view is in sync with a plethora of sentiments expressed by others on this subject matter including the police prosecutor’s investigation.
However, there are other factors that may equally be responsible for such killings of which the activities of the spiritualists is an important part.
Honestly, the prevalence of the activities of some spiritualists is worrying not just on our TV and radios stations but also on the social media platforms like Facebook and WhatsApp. It is nausea logging onto your Facebook account to not only see their advertisement on Facebook but also actually getting private messages and tags on your wall or page as well as posting sporadically under the comment section of major stories of reputable online news portals selling their products key amongst them which is money ritual.
What gets me boiled is the phone calls or WhatsApp messages on lotto numbers and advertisements of these same spiritualists on money rituals and many other products. They, just out of the blue, dial numbers and send those ‘ things’ to such unknown numbers, many of which I personally have received and young, greedy or week minded persons would fall prey to their outright-greed oriented charms.
The net effect of such unregulated posts or advertisement on social media and on national television has the potential of luring many adventurous youths into money rituals by such spiritualists. It is a factor which no person can gross over too quickly as it were respectfully and I am inclined to believe that the NMC chairman respectfully has not fully acquainted himself with this rather worrying situation as one would have expected of him to have done.
The impact of the activities of such spiritualists is better understood within the context of a triad or multiple considerations some of which are poverty, unemployment especially among people with the requisite qualifications but due to ‘whom you know, are struggling to get jobs, a situation which has now ravaged every facet of Ghana at preponderant levels, uncontrollable greed and many other factors which unfortunately leave people with no option than committing crime to earn a means of livelihood.
Of course, if you have not faced some of the factors highlighted above especially on abled-bodied youths with requisite qualifications who fail to get jobs as a result of not knowing prominent people at key positions to assist them or if your children have not suffered a similar fate due to your connections with many prominent people, it will take the Holy Spirit for people in such positions to fully understand the incessant killings and the general frustrations of the youths which is at the heart of this conversation.
Therefore, nepotism and unbridled greed cannot be discounted or downplayed in this discussion because they make especially the youths susceptible to indulge in ‘sakawa’ and money rituals which are blamable for the incessant killings and suicides in the country now but the advertisement of the spiritualists is enticing enough for one to ignore too easily if the fear of God is not embedded in the person’s upbringing.
Notwithstanding, no one must live with the illusions that because “the system is not working”, taking another one’s life is a plausible idea at getting rich because in the voice of Paul “if in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable” 1 Corinthians 15: 19.
For death is not an end in itself. Definitely, you shall be called to account on Judgement Day so think twice!
By Daniel Yiadom Boakye