Violence! Violence! Violence?

To say that the last week of January into the first week of February 2025 was eventful might be an understatement.

Perhaps, “violent” will be a more appropriate word.

• At Accra Academy SHS, a machete-wielding student was caught on tape dangerously flogging new students with the side of a machete.

The General Secretary of Ghana-National-Association-of-Teachers (GNAT), Thomas Musah Tanko, said: “As a nation, we have lost character and conscience.

We are now training people with knowledge, but when it comes to character and conscience, we have fallen short. If care is not taken, we will all be in trouble in the coming years.

This is something policymakers must seriously address.”

• At Salaga SHS, Savannah Region, a violent clash on February 4, between students left a student seriously injured. The police arrested twenty students.

• In Accra, a violent clash between students of Kinbu SHS and Accra Technical Training Centre (ATTC) resulted in the death of a student.

• At Nsoatre on Sunday, February 2, 2025, a football league match between Nsoatreman FC and visiting Kumasi Asante Kotoko went violent resulting in the stabbing to death of Francis Frimpong, a supporter of Kotoko.

• Perhaps, the negative “icing on the cake,” though no death was recorded, was the violence on Thursday, January 30, 2025, at Parliament House during the Appointment Committee’s vetting of nominees, broadcast live to the whole world.

Described variously as “disgraceful, regrettable, shameful, despicable” etc, our “Honorables” dishonourably converted the chamber into a boxing ring, not only engaging in fisticuffs but also destroying furniture and electronic gadgets.

This re-enactment of the violent events in the chamber on the night of January 7, 2021, reminded me of my article of January 2021 titled “Pandemonium in Democracy’s Citadels.” I stated:

In his poem “Paradise Lost” of 1667 on the sacking of Satan by God to Hell, the English poet John Milton invented the word “Pandemonium,” as the capital of Hell. He described Pandemonium as the “high capital of Satan and his peers!”

January 2021

January 2021 started on a whirlwind note in two capitals, Washington-DC and Accra! Almost simultaneously, there was pandemonium in the Capitol, Washington-DC on January 6, 2021, and Parliament, Accra early January 7, 2021.

The world’s leading exponent of democracy, the USA, and Africa’s beacon of democracy, Ghana, both came out badly bruised, losing their cherished reputations as democracies par excellence. 

In Washington-DC, the iconic Capitol Hill on which the US Congress stands was stormed by President Trump supporters.

Incited by Trump, they were to prevent the certification by Congress of Joe Biden as the winner of the 2020 US presidential elections.

With Congress in session, thousands of Trump supporters breached security and stormed the Capitol destroying things and desecrating Congress with faecal matter. 

Early January 7, 2021, in Accra, Ghanaians watched with disbelief and shock how our Parliament Chamber was converted into a blend of a rugby stadium and a boxing/wrestling ring where MPs violently displayed their snatching, sprinting, slapping, stampeding and sitting-on-lap skills.

In the confusion, armed soldiers and the police also entered the Chamber! 

On the first sitting of the 8th Parliament on January 15, 2021, the Speaker strongly reprimanded the MPs for their “unruly behaviour” and “despicable conduct!” He warned he would have none of that on his watch. 

Lessons 

Words like “unbelievable, shameful, disgraceful” have described events in Parliament on January 7, 2021. To say we fell from grace to grass may be an understatement.

Disappointed African friends who hitherto held Ghana in high esteem teasingly welcomed us to the league of Thomas Hobbes’ jungle law parliaments where animalistic aggressiveness and violence reign over restraint and decorum.  

A venerable statesman opined that Parliament was now perceived as a goldmine where people went not to serve, but to make money.

Otherwise, why should parliamentarians ask for ex-gratia of four-hundred-thousand cedis each after four years in Parliament when they see nothing wrong with teachers and nurses being given less than ten thousand cedis gratuity after thirty years’ service? What is the point in violently attaining power knowing that violence begets violence, with Ghana thrown into anarchy?  

Discussion

Frustrated by all the violence, is it any wonder that elder statesman Sam Okudzeto said “Ghana has become a nation of hooligans”?

How come our SHSs have become breeding grounds not only for violence but murder in some cases?

The stabbing to death of a student of O’Reilly SHS by a schoolmate in September 2024 is still fresh in our minds.

In the name of human rights, discipline, which straightened us as children, has been relegated to the background with dire consequences.

After the night of violence on January 7, 2021, did Ghanaians not overwhelmingly say “Never again” to such violence?

On curbing violence, as I was told in Uganda where I lived from 2008-2009 when I asked why the constant spate of killings: 
“When people know they can get away with murder because nothing will happen to them, they will kill with impunity.

But when they know they will also be killed for murder because the Law works, they will not kill!”

Is the democracy we are practising with its “winner-takes-all” (WTA) and highly polarising mentality where about half the population is alienated as “opposition” at any one time, the best for Ghana?

Are we waiting for an MP to be killed in the Chamber before we think of options like Proportional Representation (PR) as is the case in the Scandinavian countries?

This is an electoral system in which parties gain seats in Parliament proportional to the number of votes cast for them.

Perhaps, the venerable Nana Dr SKB Asante who led the Committee of Experts that made proposals for debate by the 258-member Consultative Assembly in 1991-1992, and is thus described as the “father of the 1992 Constitution” could educate Ghanaians on Proportional Representation as thought of by his Committee of Experts.

While over 130 countries select their MPs by PR/modified, only 55 use the First-Pass-the-post/Winner-Takes-All.

May decency, selflessness and patriotism be our guide as MPs/leaders, and not needless machoism, as our children learn from us! May the souls of the lost lives RIP!

Leadership, Lead by Example! Fellow Ghanaians, wake up! 

Former CEO of the African Peace Support Trainers Association,
Nairobi, Kenya/Council Chairman, Family Health University,
Accra.                        
E-mail: dkfrimpong@yahoo.com