Time To Heal The Wounds

With the lull in the mayhem that claimed many lives in Bimbilla and effectively adding the town to the list of flashpoints in the country, we think that this is the time to fashion out something that should bring lasting peace to the area.

We cannot afford to wait till there is a crisis in a trouble spot before applying the usual fire brigade approach. Now that the guns have gone silent time it is to engage with critical personalities in the community and outside it with a view to finding a permanent solution to the security challenge in the Bimbilla community.

The trauma, anger and above all, loss of faith in the security system to provide sufficient protection against danger are some of the things that should be worked upon.

When people begin to doubt in the ability of the state to shield them against harm then they think of alternative means of containing the threats that they see in the horizon.

Those who witnessed the murder and sometimes the lighting of human beings they have lived with over the years must be traumatized and could even suffer post-trauma stress syndrome – the kind of mental challenge associated with witnessing such horrible spectacles.

It is our wish that experts, in managing such situations, be dispatched to those places to work on especially child victims of the mayhem so that they do not carry into adult life a scar which can destroy their lives as it were.

Hardly do we consider the implications of such crazy breakdown of law and order let alone dealing with them to obviate a painful recurrence. We might not be able to assess the mental challenge the killings and maiming could have visited on the residents of the town unless we take pains to really go in there. Were we to have a report from the relevant professionals such as clinical psychologists we would discover that a lot of harm has been done to especially children and women.

As for the economic disruption and its aftermath they are enormous. This and the effect of the killings could form the basis for a meaningful engagement with the people.

When the people appreciate the fact that there is relative calm and they are in a better position to reason, they can be referred to the crazy things they did, especially to children and women with a view to making them understand the foolishness of their bloodcurdling actions.

We think that some identifiable personalities in society such as the National Chief Imam and others – depending on the dominant religious persuasion in Bimbilla – must be engaged to go and work on the situation.

The lull in fighting does not suggest total peace. We cannot afford to be expending so much money in maintaining law and order when the cause of such strife are created by the stubbornness of certain individuals in the communities.