If Kasoa teenage ‘murderers’ had succeeded, society would have glorified them – Prof Aning

Prof Kwesi Aning of the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Center, KAIPTC, says Ghanaians need not be hypocritical about the recent murder in Kasoa of an 11-year-old boy by his teenage friends.

According to him, society has long shirked the responsibility of making demands of the sources of people’s wealth but rather celebrate people with unexplained wealth.

GhanaWeb monitored Prof Aning’s submissions on Accra-based Joy FM’s Friday night news program, Ghana Connects, during which he stressed the need for a paradigm shift in how society viewed wealth.

“If these boys had been successful, and as one of them said by Friday, Saturday he had bought that Land Rover, society would have glorified them.

“And it is the hypocrisy of even the way we are handling the public discourse that worries me even more. No one would have said I am going to the police, to EOCO to say, look; an 18-year-old kid has bought a $90,000 car. How did he buy it, we would have glorified him.

“Our religious institutions would not have thrown him out when he drives in there pompous, arrogant. He would have been invited to public functions… we should bow our head in collective shame,” stressed.

A week ago, reports emerged from the Lamptey Mills area in Kasoa that two teenage boys had allegedly murdered an 11-year-old Ishmael Mensah after violently attacking him in an uncompleted building.

Police arrested the duo and have since processed them before the courts whiles the body of the deceased was also relseased to the family for burial last Wednesday.

According to police prosecutors, the main motive of the two accused was to use the victim for money rituals. The said priestess who reportedly demanded that they bring human parts for the sacrifice was also arrested during the week.

The incident has triggered a national debate on how society glorifies wealth on one hand and on the other hand, the role especially of sections of the media in promoting the activities of spiritualists.