By Kwarteng Francis

Oh yes, we are gradually sliding back down into the hellhole of the feral state of animal civilization.

We had wished this haunting story were never true.

That a suspected female thief could be subjected to such a degree of agonizing jungle brutality, allegedly for stealing some cash, approximately US$250, chills us to the bone. There is, however, some evidence pointing to lack of unanimity or consensus on what exactly this lady was alleged to have stolen. Some media outlets even claim she is a Nigerian? Does it really matter?

This is really sad!

Ghana, a jungle democracy!

Ghana, an open-democracy!

Ghana, a stinking banana republic ruled by lawless Dung Beetles!

When Akufo-Addo reportedly says All-Die-Be-Die!

When Collins Dauda’s brother, Naaba Abdulai reportedly declares “I kill people every day”!

When Kennedy Agyapong reportedly asks Akans, Asantes primarily, to genocidally massacre Ewes and Gas!

When Kennedy Agyapong alleged that Madam Charlotte Osei traded her womanhood for the leadership of the Electoral Commission (EC)!

Kennedy Agyapong, a lover and hater of Eve Ensler’s “The Vagina Monologues.”

When Montie 3 reportedly threaten to “kill and rape judges”!

When Akufo-Addo reportedly brings in Serbian and South African mercenaries to train political terrorists, like members of the Invisible Forces, like members of the newly constituted Assets Retrieval Task Force, who have been going after suspected political car thieves without so much as the benefit of warrants, of due process, of the rule of law, this kind of jungle lawlessness is bound happen.

Yes, jungle lawlessness is bound to happen when Eugene Arhin plagiarized portions of speeches by dyslexic George Bush and Monica Lewinsky’s political philanderer and playboy, Bill Clinton, possibly without ever anticipating his being caught.

And when judges barter justice for salon massage, sex, tubers of yam, cash, and goat meat.

And also, as we probably all know too well, when the courts let off the hook politicians who steal millions of dollars but hand down stiff verdicts and sentences in the case of petty thieves.

Where are society’s positive models, male and female?

Still, it beggars belief why some will descend so low, so low to the extent of not seeing anything wrong or morally objectionable with inserting their dirty toes in a woman’s vagina, a woman stripped naked as part of the jungle justice meted out to her, a woman whose forbidden nakedness and intimate parts are made the toast of, or the center of mockery on, social media amongst mostly crude male voyeuristic barbarians.

These dirty toes are like the mouth of parliamentarian Kennedy Agyapong’s, a man who was not birthed by a woman, a man who is also an incorrigible enemy of women including this lady suspected of thievery. Yet:

She could be anyone’s sister.

She could be anyone’s mother.

She could be anyone’s niece.

She could be anyone’s aunt.

She could be anyone’s girlfriend.

She could be anyone’s wife.

She could be anyone’s sister-in-law.

She could be a goddess.

She could even be an angel, a saint.

And what if she were any of the above to the males who allegedly inserted their dirty toes in her vagina?

Does it even matter at all if she were, indeed, any of the above to the men who allegedly inserted their dirty toes in her vagina?

It really does not matter for lack of a better expression.

The men’s failure to allow the law and the courts to take their natural course in this matter is deeply regrettable, unfortunate.

As a people can we say with any degree of moral certainty whether we are going or coming, as far as the rule of law is concerned?

In many an instance such as this barbaric act, the answer is eloquently, resoundingly yet simply no.

The ghastly underpinnings of our animal nature are being laid bare, naked, by such bold but cowardly, condemnable acts of inhumane barbarity and outright betrayal of human decency and moral intelligence.

As a largely phallocentric society, we are not doing enough in protecting the girl child and women in general.

This is not to imply we condone her shameful act of alleged thievery, even if true. Far from it.

Yet popular frustration and hopelessness and desperation, and mass poverty cannot sufficiently account for this damning act of barbaric rawness and cowardly intimidation of femininity.

Is this troubling example of instance justice what the country’s inventory of legal codes stands for?

Can’t we protect our women anymore?

What happened to our cultural respect for and sense of matrifocality and matriarchy?

And to learn of the incident taking place in Chairman Wontumi’s Kumasi, Chairman Wontumi, a pockmarked face of political barbarism, is deeply though ironically disappointing, because the Asante Region is expected to be one of the major cultural centers of matriarchy where, for purposes of recollection, we recently observed the funeral pomp that accompanied Asanteheemaa Nana Afia Kobi Serwaa Ampem the Second.

Well, the very act of this kind of jungle justice is not unlike a typical case of gang rape.

It really is, like gang rape, no doubt. And the perpetrators belong in prison.

It is an act that must be absolutely condemned by all without reservation, without hesitation, without notions of gender bias, in no uncertain terms, unfortunately an act that is also a national disaster, a blot on the national conscience.

Thus, the anonymous perpetrators behind this barbaric depersonalizing of the lady in question must be hunted down like animals and brought to justice. They must be made to face the full rigor of the law in all fairness.

Then the lady in question should submit to a thorough medical examination, after which the perpetrators must be forced to foot her medical bill.

Must we cut off the perpetrators’ toes? Or amputate their lower limbs? Will Sharia decrees and laws apply in this disgraceful, objectionable act of cowardly barbarity?

Must we castrate the perpetrators for their cold barbarity? Must we not prevent the male ego from imposing gender-based violence upon the public?

Must we guillotine them? Must we sjambok them? Must we parade them through the streets naked?

This is a good case for the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) and the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) to tackle.

Or, rather, it is the case that the BNI and the CID expect Kwesi Kyei Darkwa (KKD) to go after the perpetrators?

In any case where are Otiko Afisa Djaba and the leadership of the Ministry for Gender, Children and Social Protection?

Where is the leadership of Martin Amidu? Where is the leadership of Akufo-Addo? Where is the leadership of Akoto Ampaw? Where is the leadership of Nana Oye Lithur? Where is the leadership of Nana Asante Bediatuo? Where is the leadership of Kweku Baako, Jr? Where is the leadership of Kwesi Pratt, Jr? Where is the leadership of Mike Oquaye? Where are the leaderships of our religious organizations? Where are the leaderships of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs)?

Missing in action? Oh yes, but not when Akufo-Addo’s Invisible Forces is terrorizing Ghanaian citizens, his subjects, including members of the security services, police and military.

And, certainly, not when the same Akufo-Addo is the new celebrity face on the partisan billboard of political gangstarism. Ask his Invisible Forces? Or, if we may also add, his chameleonic Invincible Forces!

FOOD FOR THOUGHT: SOME CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES

A nation that cannot protect the girl child and women is not worth living in, worth dying for, and such a nation puts its development and growth on a pedestal of critical jeopardy, on the basis of the fact that it overlooks women as a major contributory factor to the engine of productive power.

That is to say, the productive activities of women constitute an interesting soundtrack to the progressive national narrative on our re-based GDP. Women are the backbone of both the traditional and national economies. They provide one of the key elements of capital—labor or human beings. Women, not men, are the pillars, shapers and movers of human society.

At the end of the day the quality of the relationship between men and women in our society should look more like the optimal inviting sound, that a professional hand manages to produce via its superior tactile perception, by masterly bringing together the white and black keys of a piano or an organ in a perfect, creative dimension of harmonious integration.

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

A nation that does not respect and protect its women from the abuses of the male ego—mothers, sisters, nieces, wives, grandmothers, sisters-in-law, mothers-in-law, and so on—is unreservedly ungodly.

Ghana is gradually inching toward that cesspit of ungodliness, and all people of conscience must therefore rise up and condemn this act of cowardly barbarity, since the least the purveyors of mob justice could have done in this case was to take her, together with the stolen items or material evidence, to a police station.

Therefore this brazen-like but cowardly administration of this barbaric form of jungle justice must not be accommodated in our open-defecation democracy, not in a million years to come. This is what Ghanaian men know how to do best, beating and terrorizing the weak in society while foreigners pollute their country and steal their mineral and gas/oil wealth, and their politicians plunder the public purse with reckless abandon, even while these Ghanaian men look away.

And while we are still at it, let us encourage our traumatized sister to fully cooperate with the police by taking the medical forms she was given to a hospital for a proper, thorough medical check-up and by turning the forms in to aid in the investigation. We will also encourage citizens with any intimate knowledge of the incident and of persons involved in the act to go to the police with this information.

We know our sister is heavily traumatized by this sad experience and probably, being also stigmatized and disgraced by this singular act of shameful barbarity, coming out in full glare of the facts will require a formidable presence of mind and an unpretentious display of decisive bravery, both of which might be far from her reach at this moment, hence her grudging failure to cooperate with the authorities.

But it is for her own good, the good of women and of the girl child, and the good of the larger society that she does not shy away from cooperating with the police. She must surely do this. Of course, some dozen men involved in the act have reportedly been arrested by the police but this must not end there.

Again, to our Dear and Beloved Sister, wherever you are, please listen up! Here is Bob Marley’s “No Woman, No Cry” for you:

“No, woman, no cry

“No woman, no cry

“No, woman, no cry

“No, woman, no cry…

“Woman, little darling, say don’t shed no tears…

“Little sister, don’t shed no tears!

Dear Sister, take consolation in Shaggy’s “Strength of a Woman.”

It shall definitely be well.

We shall return…