The Ashaiman incident: How the state failed its citizens – Lecturer, Political Analyst writes
The Ashaiman incident: How the state failed its citizens – Lecturer, Political Analyst writes
I was born and brought up at Krofrom (Columbia) in Kumasi where drugs and crime were/are the order of the day. For the four decades of my existence, I have seen the situation moving from bad to worst. Now every corner that one turns is a den of drug addicts, drug peddlers and criminals. Drugs are sold and used in the open.
There are no secrets. From the Krofrom traffic light through to Columbia to Sofo Abodwes3, not a single area is free from these vices. No one, from unit committee members and Assemblymen and women from the various electoral areas to the city Authorities in Kumasi to the various security agencies and all government departments including the social welfare department, can claim ignorance to this canker. You cannot even walk at night freely after 8pm without the fear of being robbed.
For the four decades of my existence and experience of the place of my birth, maybe I have been sleeping, I have not witnessed and attempt by any government to actually solve that problem at Krofrom except police and military raids to arrest these drug addicts. Everyone in that area knows what happen to those arrested because in a day or two, the return to the exact spot they were arrested.
There hasn’t been a single social intervention with a far reaching programmer to help these people out of their addiction or to help the younger generation navigate their way through such terrible environment without getting trapped in this web of drugs and crime.
And amazingly, who ends up getting all the blame? The people who are affected by the corruption of the political elites. The people whom the system has neglected. The people who are the most vulnerable economically and socially. The people who are being groomed by these same politicians to do their dirty works for them.
Instead of this Ashaiman issue calling fir a national debate on how to bridge the poverty gab and develop comprehensive programs in solving this canker of crime and drugs, the only concern of the state and civil society has been how to use brute force or what should have been the military’s reaction. That debate should give way to how to help these people to navigate out of what this same system has created.
Signed: Mr. Clement Acheampong – Lecturer & Political Analyst (Prempeh College – Kumasi)
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DISHEARTENING: Watch How Soldiers Brutalized The Residents Of Ashaiman | VIDEOS
SOURCE: Filasconews.com
