Is the lynching of Captain Mahama any lessons for vigilantism?

I AM in faraway Maryland in the United States of America where I am among the team of people accompanying Lily Tugbah, winner of the 2017 edition of The Spelling Bee in Ghana, to take part in the Scripps National Spelling Bee.

Thirteen-year old (she was 12 when departing Ghana and turned 13 two days after she arrived in the USA on Saturday) Lily Tugbah who fend off opposition from about 200 other contestants at the Ghana national final in February is carrying the strength of the whole continent on her shoulder as the only contestant from Africa.

The JHS 1 student of Solidarity International School, Ashaiman is accompanied by Mrs. Eugenia Tachie-Menson, Executive Director of Young Educators Foundation (YEF), organisers of The Spelling Bee in Ghana, her coach/trainer Mr. Emmanuel Afful, Ms. Salomey Dzakpasu, her chaperone, Ms. Juliet Amoah, the Associate Pronouncer of The Spelling Bee and my good self, the Media Guru (insert a smile smiley here).

Lily had her first bite of the Bee last Tuesday when all contestants wrote a test in spelling and vocabulary and will be tasting the real thing on Wednesday when they stand before the mic to spell. If she makes it on Wednesday and has a good result from the written test, Lily will be on her way to the final today!

Team is hopeful that Lily will come through with success, however we are very grateful that she would have the opportunity to take part in this life changing competition regardless of what happens on Wednesday and Thursday. Lily is still a winner and a worthy representative of the country and the continent!

However, even as we are in the far away United States we have been following the news from Ghana and like most other Ghanaian citizens, to say we were gutted doesn’t quiet describe what we felt when the news of Captain Maxwell Adam Mahama’s lynching in Denkyira-Obuasi got to us.

The barbarism, callousness and brazen bestiality exemplified by the perpetrators of the crime was neither lost on us nor on the good people of Ghana. We were beyond being gobsmacked and two days on, I still feel the bile in my mouth event as I write this piece.

I am aware that the radio stations have been inundated with the discussion of this subject, the same with the television stations and I don’t have to tell you that social media has spoken about nothing else since last Tuesday. The entire nation cannot bear the horror visited on the young captain by the miscreants in Denkyira-Obuasi.

Everyone with a conscience has condemned this act and rightly so called for the perpetrators to be brought to book. The president of the nation, through his official Twitter account, has consoled the family of Captain Mahama and has assured them and the nation that those who committed the crime would not go unpunished.
 
The fact is that, those who did this will either be arrested or like many other unsolved crimes (from the days of Kweku Ninja and Taller till the days of Fennec Okyere) or they will not be. If they are arrested we can be sure that, with the right evidence to support the case, they will spend the necessary punishment that goes with such wicked crime.

If they are not then it will be yet another crime that didn’t get solved and in itself have a way of discouraging people about the criminal justice system we have in Ghana.

It conveys the message that people can commit crimes as heinous as this and get away with it!

The initial information accompanying the murder that came through was that the late captain was confused with an armed robber and lynched by the mob and yet others think it is a carefully planned job by the galamsey operators of the town. We do not know which until an official investigation says, regardless of which it though people have committed a very despicable crime and there is the need for someone to pay for it.

Whichever it is though there the need for us as a nation to have a very tough conversation about mob action. Vigilantism must be frowned upon by every citizen of this country. We are very quick to rush to stone or even dish a slap to someone who is caught as an alleged thief.

We have turned ourselves as court, judge, prosecutor in every situation where an alleged thief is caught and we mete out the punishment street style; usually it includes severe beatings and in many cases stoning or burning the suspect to death.

Nothing can be barbaric than such actions and it must be said, and forcefully, that we cannot go on as a modern nation with this mentality. Ghana is a democracy with clearly defined laws against crime and structures to deal with those who flout such laws.  We cannot arrogate into our hands the job of the judiciary!

Vigilantism is archaic, anachronistic, backward and very unbecoming of a people who say they are the beacon of hope for the continent. If nothing has pricked our conscience in the past, this stupid lynching of Captain Mahama should do so.

You only have to be called a “thief”, “julor”, “fiafitor”, “kronfour”, “brarawo” or any of the local words used to describe one who has stolen to know what your fate would be in a crowded placed. If the mentality of the people is to mete out instant justice to anyone caught as thief you could be an innocent person being stoned, beaten, cut or stabbed to death! This nation must move on and rise up from this low-life of barbarism.

It is time we had that conversation. It is time a whole campaign is done about the need to stop instant and or mob justice. It is time the National Commission on Culture, the Peace Council, the National House of Chiefs, the political parties and religious organisations get into this and tell the people about the need to put this backwardness behind us.

In fact, just like we tackled the galamsey issue, I think the media and everyone else who have any conscience left should join the bandwagon so we can all together say no to vigilantism.

We may have lost the good captain to this barbarism, but if we have anything to honour his memory, it should be the fact his death pricked the conscience of the nation to finllly decry and move away from instant justice!
Fare thee well Captain Maxwell Adam Mahama!

@TheGHMediaGuru