EDITORIAL: Not Again!

The gory picture of a man hanging from the branch of a tree, a suicide, and the lifeless decomposing remains of a woman, his wife, appears to becoming a trend these days. Broken homes and the violent venting of men�s anger on women and so on are sources of major concern in the country today. Unfortunately, our children are witnesses to the despicable spectacles, not only on the pages of newspapers but the airwaves among others. We as adults are not exhibiting exemplary conduct to our children, yet we erroneously think that we are discharging our duties responsibly. Not so by all standards, as those in charge of policies, individuals and indeed all of us have a share in the not-too-good society in which we live in. We have all of a sudden shunned away from the notion of being our brothers� keepers in a country in which this virtue was a critical segment of our social life. Like we stated in an earlier editorial, unless members of families take interest in their kith and kin, challenges faced by individuals cannot be managed. When such challenges remain unsolved, the easier but unacceptable option of suicide is exploited to the disadvantage of children who end up becoming full-fledged orphans or partial ones. In the case of the man who murdered his wife and committed suicide, we find the development most disturbing. We are compelled to pose the question: �Why would neighbours fail to discern the sudden unusualness in the conduct of those they share the same environments?� We recall a previous admonition about the need for people to take interest in their environments and to take appropriate action when there is suspicion that something is not adding up. Quite often, we harbour such suspicions, thinking that since they do not concern us, the best conduct is to pretend that everything is normal. Most Ghanaians would not raise any alarm when they detect, in their surroundings, strange looking-persons who by all standards are aliens. We are just not security conscious. The absence of the lady for some days and the accompanying telltale smell of decomposition, alongside the unusual behaviour of the murderer, should have by all means attracted the attention of neighbours, had they cared to be curious about their environment. The standard Ghanaian behaviour would certainly not allow those who observe the unusual trend to raise any alarm anyway. Such actions are reserved for the day when matters come to a head as in the case of the murder and the suicide. The often useless disclosures by the now singing neighbours about how they heard an unusual screaming from the room following a knife stab, come too late after the deed has been done. We must not shirk our responsibility to the society, a duty which we can discharge by being observant at all times and learning to call the attention of the Police when there is suspicion that a crime is about to be committed or has been committed. This is one critical way by which we can build our society into one in which the law would be rarely breached and our overall security protected.