The Hypocrisy Of Ghanaians In The Face Of Instant Mob Injustice: The Case Of Captain Maxwell Adam Mahama

I have been reading and listening to the reactions of many of my friends, journalists, social commentators, local community opinion leaders, politicians, musicians and officers of the various national security agencies in Ghana on the unfortunate death of Captain Maxwell Adam Mahama. I condemn the dastardly act of injustice that was meted out to the junior army officer by the hoodlums of the community where the incident happened. I cannot for any reason support any mob injustice that has led to the unexpected death of an innocent citizen of our land. Totally despicable, contemptible and disgraceful.

Whiles others are strongly condemning the act and asking that the long hands of the law must deal with the perpetrators, there are others who have vehemently proposed that the military should descend on the community and unleash equal havoc on the entire people in the community, men, women, young and old. This shows the stance of our nation on the issue of instant mob injustice. In all these I have been asking myself several questions.

Why are we showing so much concern about this particular incident of vigilantisms? The emotions attached to this particular one has never been seen in our country. Is it because he is a military officer or it is the first time such a thing has happened in our dear country? I lost count of the number of people who suffered similar fate during my days as a student of University of Ghana. Suspected male thieves were lynched to death whiles their female counterparts were stripped naked. This happened at the sanctuary of intellect. Can anybody provide the statistics of suspected armed robbers and thieves who have suffered this kind of barbaric attack? Just a few months ago a lady was stripped naked in Kumasi and her crime was that she had stolen something which ended up to be false accusation.

How many of us have not participated in the beating of a suspected thief? Did we feel this sorry for that person? He/she could have been innocent too. How many times have we not heard the police or in the worst case the military launch attack on a whole community subjecting its residents to severe beatings? Chain saw operators have been killing forest guards but we have been quiet about it as if they didn’t matter. There have been instances where serving police officers have been killed by mob yet we closed our eyes as if they had no families too. In fact, there have even been instances where a group of soldiers have conspired to beat serving police officers without provocation yet we watched on. There is even a phenomenon especially among Suame magazine workers in Kumasi. Anytime a young mechanic of Suame magazine dies, the group just goes to the family house of the deceased and subject especially the old women to severe beatings on suspicion that the person might have been killed by witches in the family. This is the kind of rot we have tolerated for many years in Ghana.

The hypocrisy that is being exhibited by some Ghanaians on this matter annoys me so much. I hear politicians sobbing and the voices of others shrieking anytime they talked about the death of the military officer as if they just descended from the heavens and that they are entirely new to this phenomena. I admire those who have been bold enough to admit that they are being dramatic about this one because the person involved is a soldier and that they could not even in their wildest imagination fathom a soldier being subjected to this kind of humiliation. Interestingly, some of the people condemning the mob injustice meted out to Maxwell Mahama are advocating for the soldiers to go and flatten the whole community. How are these people different from the mobsters of Denkyira Obuasi?

There have been reports that soldiers went to the village woke up the whole community and brought them out at 2.am. They took the men both young and old through beatings and military drills whiles the women and children sat under the scorching sun hungry and crying throughout the day until 5pm yet we have all been reluctant to condemn it. We think it is alright for the soldiers to subject innocent citizens of our country to this ridicule and indignity. It is as if the soldiers are lawful in this adventure. I have even heard people say they people are lucky they were just beaten because the soldiers could have killed them all. We are full of praise for the military for restraining themselves as if they have the right to beat, maim and kill with or without any provocation. The same week Adam Mahama was killed by mobsters, a women suspected to be a witch in northern Ghana was stoned to death whiles another man suspected to be a thief suffered a similar fate at Mmbrom (K.O) in Kumasi. It is as if the lives of these individuals do not matter too.

We live in a country where men can organize themselves to attach a women or in the worst case stripped a lady naked and her offence was that she was wearing a mini skirt. What has been our response to such cases? I think we should just wait till it happens to the wife or daughter of a prominent person in society before such issues become topical in our social and political discussions. I am not in any way suggesting that because it happened in the past and nothing was done about it we cannot talk about it now. I am more concern about our hypocrisy.

I think as a society we have allowed this canker to fester. Lynching of supposed thieves has been going on before I was born. During the military regime of Rawlings there were actually public lynching supervised by soldiers. E.g. the lynching of the Boateng and Darko Trading owners in Kumasi in 1982. During my formative years in Kumasi I used to run to the scene of thieves who were being lynched at Bantama market around Rivoli Theatre. Those times I never considered the phenomena as a crime or anything bad. I was always considered them to be fun. My final words before leaving the scene were always ‘’It serves him right’’. We have allowed mob rule to become insidious in our social fabric. We have broken the cords of our community. Societal norms and values do not matter anymore. We have become more individualistic, corrupt, greedy and worst of all our institutions that are supposed to contribute to our orientation have failed us from NCCE to Chieftaincy, judiciary, security agencies through to religious institutions.

On Thursday 1^st June, 2017 I was scandalized to hear very influential people in our society on Peace FM Kokrokoo programme defending the idea of beating children both at home and in school. It was almost as if not beating a child in school is rather a crime. This advocacy was led by my own Kwame Sefa Kayi. I was so disappointed. Let me say this, that any society that glorifies violence of any form against an individual cannot absorb itself from blame from this trend of gangsterism and mob rule. An individual who finds it difficult and unacceptable to use a cane on a child or slap or beat a child in any form will equally find it repulsively unconscionable to lynch a human being. I asked many Ghanaians in Finland whether the circumstances leading to the death of the military can happen in Finland and the answers were that it was difficult or almost impossible. Why? Because, violence of any form against an individual is strictly prohibited to an extent that even speaking harshly to a person can be considered as violent.

Few days ago I listened to a recorded conversation between a host of a morning show programme on Agyenkwa FM and a soldier. In the interview the soldier was narrating about how the gruesome killing of their colleague has affected them. The part I found quite interesting was how in the face of orders from the military high command to all soldiers to respect the laws of this country, this particular soldier was running his mouth about how they had planned to kill residents of Denkyira Obuase in revenge. As unprofessional and irresponsible as he could be, he went ahead to give details about how they will execute their hatched palm. He was so emphatic that they were definitely going to kill the people of Denkyira Obuase in retaliation in gross defiance of the laws of Ghana. The sad thing is that it is as if I and only few people are aware of the unfortunate utterances of the soldier. Nobody cares. The police will neither arrest nor invite him for questioning. It is fine because he is a soldier.

Please, let’s not make our hatred for mob injustice a fight for Captain Adam Mahama. We should see it as a problem of our society and take full responsibility to deal with it. We must begin to revise our education curriculum to include the teaching of our values and patriotism. Almost all countries in Europe make conscious effort at teaching what they call European values in school right from kindergarten. Let’s begin to move the discussion from the military officer to a holistic national discourse.

As a matter of fact, I do not care about those who want to use the death of Mahama to play a political chess game that is why I have chosen not to give any attention to the comments of the NDC General Secretary Johnson Asiedu Nketia and the likes of KoKu Anyidoho. They are total rubbish, to say the least. Already there have been suggestions that Captain Maxwell Mahama should be given a state burial and his children some kind of scholarship of at least free education up to the university level. I support that. But I cannot support the suggestion from the family of the military officer that a National Monument should be built in honour of the fallen soldier. I say this will amount to personalization of the issue and soon Ghanaians will be fed up and start making jokes with the death and the military. Some of you may not agree with me and rather turn my critique into an apologia but I am not bothered.

My heartfelt condolences to the family of Captain Maxwell Adam Mahama and all families that have lost members through mob injustice. To the survival of vigilantism, I share your feelings too. Wrong is wrong. It doesn’t matter where it happens and who is involved. Injustice anywhere is definitely a threat to justice everywhere. This is why we must be more concerned and give attention to all victims of instant mob injustice dead or alive. The whole country must resolve to say no to all forms of vigilantism/Mob injustice and take practical unhypocritical steps towards their eradication from our society. I want to emphasize that if we continue to treat this issue with theatrical emotions our fight against this social scourge will be nothing but a sisyphusean task.

Thank you.
James Mckeown
Ghanaian resident in Helsinki, Finland.
[email protected]