Guns, Gunmen And Ghana

It is not a pleasant thing to admit but truth be told, the rising reports of gunmen attacking innocent persons and robbing them of their properties and sometimes killing them is scary, especially the continuous nature of the rising attacks.

Where and how such hoodlums conceal the guns and continue to work with them, evading arrest is a question for the gods and a vivid indicator of a failing security system.

It is believed such guns are illegally imported, manufactured locally or are converted weapons. Their presence in the system and the mindset of their owners is a clear recipe for anarchy

The New Publisher finds it depressing that as a country, there is no sense of urgency in championing a concerted national effort to address the disturbing challenge.

This is a dangerous culture being nursed. If allowed to gain grounds, it would become completely impossible to cure just as our neighboring Nigeria is bending over backwards to tackle same challenge without much success.

The proliferation of small arms in Nigeria did not happen in a day. It started slowly just as what is happening in Ghana  until it reached its current uncontrollable stage where some five years ago, the United Nations disclosed that  as many as 350 million out of the 500 million small and light weapons circulating in West Africa can be found in that country. That was in 2016, this is 2021 and the figure would obviously have gone up.

Here we are in Ghana, failing to see the sense in fetching a bucket of water to place near our grown beard, even when we can see our neighbour’s beard ablaze.

Just before the 2020 general elections, some three months ago, gunmen ambushed a Member of Parliament in this country and shot him dead. We wailed, we buried him, life goes on.

Recently, the Municipal Chief Executive (MCE) for Asokore Mampong Municipal Asembly (AMMA) would have been shot dead if he had refused to hand over his official vehicle to two men who ambushed him and demanded at gunpoint that he should hand over the vehicle, a Toyota Hilux with registration number GW 2473-16.

In November last year, just some three months back, there was a similar incident at Wa in the Upper West Region where the District Chief Executive (DCE) for Wa West, became an armed robbery victim.

Again, in May last year, some eight armed robbers shot and killed the official driver of the District Chief Executive of the Amansie South.

These high profile incidents are the ones that made the news headlines but there are several other incidents of gunmen attacks that have not generated much talk though they caused worse havocs

A stitch in time, saves nine