Time and again we read reports of homicides in the news. As a matter of fact, the frequency of these reports is becoming frightening regular. The sanctity of human life seems to be ignored by many people nowadays and as a result, many altercations result in the death of someone.
Sometimes it is pure violence as in armed robbery or criminals trying to escape from the law and are forced to commit these murders in their bid to escape arrest. These types of murders are as heinous as they come but the worst type is where a loved one kills another.
By the weekend, it was reported in the columns of this very paper that two young men from Wuli West in the Upper River Region have killed their parents; a son killing his own father and another killing his stepmother hours after committing his father to the earth! We can refer to the killings as murders most foul because when they appeared before the very learned Magistrate Peter Che, both men pleaded guilty. In the case of the patricide, the accused Alpha Omar S Bah was said to be afflicted with mental illness. But whatever the case, parricides, or the killings of close family relations, are as grave an offence as they come.
Of course, these are complex cases but experts will study these incidents and their frequency and diagnose the problem as emanating from many different and varied factors one of which is the extremely difficult economic conditions of the people of the country. It is imperative that the authorities look into these incidents carefully. Why are they happening and with rapid such occurrences?
One can argue that people are killed everyday and everywhere. But the circumstances are different. These are macabre novelties here. We should not allow them to be the new normal to the point that people become desensitised to them. We are known for our mild, peaceful nature. There is a reason why we are called ‘The Smiling Coast’.
Part of the reasons for these parricides is because the social fabric is slowly been unwoven. The threads that hold us together as families, as kundas, as clans, as communities, as villages, towns, regions and as a nation are snapping. Uncultured shameless individualism and lack of respect for constituted authority are taking strong root.
They say complex and challenging problems require complex solutions which are rooted in knowledge and expertise. For a problem to be solved there is need to find the real cause so that it can be tackled from the source. Our law enforcement officers, sociologists, psychologists, religious leaders, teachers, economists and policy makers have their works cut out for them. We are a society in transition and we are absolutely not managing it well.
