We need another national reorientation agenda

Horrific incidents hitherto considered highly ‘uncommon’ in Ghana have started happening in the country in recent times and the continuous nature of such sad episodes calls for the need to have a national discussion on what went wrong and how to rectify the anomaly.

Barely decade or two ago, it would have been completely unheard of that two Ghanaian teenagers aged 16 and 17 would gang up to kill an 11-year old, have the guts to bury the body with the intention of exhuming it the next day ostensibly to be used for money rituals.

Once upon a time, teenagers feared dead bodies. But here we are in 2021 Ghana and this is happening. Teenagers killing and burying and exhuming corpses? Wow!!!

This is happening at a period there is an increase in the incidents of spousal murder, suicide among police officers and all manner of movielike incidents yet there seem to be a general attitude of ‘ah well, it is not my cup of tea’.

These horror incidents are not even the most topical of issues in our national discourse. It is as if we have become a people without human feelings, a people without a sense of concern, a people who are getting used to such unthinkable madness.

What happened to us and our much-respected cultural values and national pride of being a very hospitable and peace-loving people?

Come on!!! The crisis has crossed boiling point and there should be a deliberate and concerted effort by all well-meaning Ghanaians to get the nonsense stopped with a sense of urgency!!!

It is understandable that the quest and rat race for bread and butter has become our major focus considering the economic times we are in but how are we expecting to dine in peace in the midst of the continuous decay of our moral fiber that clothes us as society.

Something has terribly gone wrong with our mindset and this is partly due to all manner of alien influences and all manner of cultural impositions we have allowed to be inflicted on us.

When we have a free media where some gate keepers are largely irresponsible to an extent they show all manner of movies that glorify money rituals during prime time of free-to-air television, what do we expect our children to believe and want to practice?

We have simply lost our senses of responsibility!!! We have forgotten that what we allow our children to watch and hear affects their attitudes and mindsets and behavioral patterns.

We have abandoned the era of the showing of movies that had moral lessons and where the villain always gets punished. We have abandoned such stories that makes wrong-doing an unattractive act and we have rather embraced all manner of television content that glorifies ill-gotten wealth.

Someone should remind the newly appointed Minister for Tourism Arts and Culture, under whose ministry the National Film Authority (NFA) falls that it was for very good reasons that the Film Classification Committee was established under existing laws that makes it compulsory that television content should be age-appropriate.

Why is this law not enforceable? Sheer lazy thinking and crass irresponsibility.

Harsh words, but true words. Something has gone wrong, something is getting worse and until we started a national reorientation agenda, we are headed for doom.