Executive Director of the Sanneh Institute at the University of Ghana Prof. John Azumah, has posited that in other countries like in Europe and America, tragedy leads to change but in Ghana people just talk about it without effecting any change to avert its recurrence in the country.
He said this at the one year commemoration of the lynching of the 90-year old Akua Denteh who was lynched in the Northern Region on 23, July 2020, for being a ‘witch’ depriving them of rain in the community.
The Forum on the one year commemoration of the lynching of the 90-year-old Madam Akua Denteh was organized by 3FM, in collaboration with the Sanneh Institute at the University of Ghana on Friday, July 23, at the Executive Theatre of TV3.
“After the lynching of Madam Akua Denteh on 23 July 2020 and this was followed by another lynching of Madam Mary Ibrahim on 29, August in Subini in the West Gonja District. And these incidents have happened and there was a lot of outcry at the time but as Alfred said earlier and Berla also said, everything went quiet after that. When everything went quiet, we decided to do something about that at the Sanneh Institute”, he pointed out.
“We went to do some research and we visited all the camps in the Northern Region and I just want to share a few of the findings with you. Like Alfred said earlier, in other places this kind of incidence will lead to serious changes, we all here have heard the George Floyd incidence, it catapulted America into serious soul searching conversations and they had to make the House of Representatives to pass a law. A law was passed in the name of George Floyd called the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act to deal with police brutality.
“This is how change happens in society, that tragedy leads to change. In Ghana when tragedy happens people talk about it and it ends there and nothing happens. When that happens the only way to get the change to happen is through civil society, in George Floyd it took civil society to demonstrate regularly on the street to make noise for this to happen. And I want to submit that unless civil society organisations and the media keep an eye on it, nothing is going to happen”, The executive director of the Sanneh Institute entreated at the forum.
By Barima Kwabena Yeboah|3news.com|Ghana
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