The Paramount Chief of the Essikado Traditional area, Nana Kobina Nketsia V, has called on Ghanaians, especially the media, to stop politicizing issues of security in the country.
In recent times, conversations about security have been rife in Ghana following increasing reports of robbery, kidnapping, and an alert about a possible terrorist attack on Ghana due to similar terror attacks elsewhere in the sub-region.
[contextly_sidebar id=”nb7kRTK4HqPYqBIzEClweRtJwySMkdt8″]Speaking to Citi News on these developments, the Paramount Chief of Essikado Traditional Area in the Western Region, Nana Kobina Nketsia V, called on Ghanaians to stop politicizing these security issues, and play their respective roles to enable government deal with them head-on.
Despite the widespread security concerns, government has insisted that Ghana still remains the safest country in the sub-region. In the Western Region for instance, particularly in the Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolis, residents have been on the lookout following the kidnapping of three girls who are yet to be found, after 10 months.
In recent times, there had been an attempt to politicize the kidnapping and subsequent rescue of two Canadian ladies in the Ashanti Region; with some political figures pointing out the political affiliations of some of the suspects arrested in that case.
The Essikado Paramount Chief, who was speaking to Citi News after commissioning a refurbished computer laboratory for the West Ridge School in Sekondi by its old students, expressed concern about this trend.
“We should stop playing politics with security. That is part of the problem I can see from us. A bad man is a bad man. Whether he is an NDC, NPP, CPP, DTT. A thief is a thief, but we have now gotten to a situation where we have an NDC or NPP thief, which is sad, but we cannot leave these kind of thought for the children who are coming. NDC and NPP are for Ghana and we are collectively one. Ghana cannot be right without the NDC, NPP or CPP and each is not better than the other.”
The Chief believes that one of the ways to deal with the state of insecurity particularly deepened by the kidnapping cases is for Ghanaians to revisit the old ways of looking out for each other.
“ The African lives in a collective, but we seem to be abandoning our collective way of life. Each one of us was his brother’s keeper. We were very self-conscious and conscious of our environment but now we seem not to border. In the past, when even a new person comes to the community, he is made known and he/she is gradually integrated into the community but now people just come in and go. Even now, if you go to some areas in Europe, when a new person comes and he stays in the hotel, the police is informed. In our traditional setting, when a new person comes to the town, the chief is informed. But when you say chief people forget that the chief is not one person, the chief is an institution representing the community. Right now we have just abandoned our collective existence and we have gone into individualism but paying a huge price for it. Maybe we need to revisit some of these things. How come that in past we were our brother’s keeper but today nobody seem to care.”
Touching on the impasse between Ghanaian and Nigerian traders over the retail market space, as well as the inciting comments of the Nigerian Professor captured on tape, Nana Nketsia; who is also a Professor of history, cautioned Ghana not to deepen the separation of Africa created by the West.
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By: Akwesi Agyei Annim|citinewsroom.com|Ghana