All is not well with the youth!

By Emmanuel Agyenfra Boateng

The rate at which suicide cases are increasing is very alarming and dumbfounding these days,to take your own life is not something we should all see as being stupid,it takes the person to plan and plan very well before committing such a crime,that is when the person have been overpowered by his or her predicaments and either finds no one worthy to trust with the problem or just think the only solution to their predicaments is to take their life.

Making the News

On the 5/05/2014 it was reported in Ghanaweb.com,modernghana.com and other print media outlets of the death of a young News Editor in Obuasi who committed suicide barely a week to his wedding ceremony.Albert Nana Asante was a vey close pal of mine but we never saw anything bothering him until the unexpected happened.It was reported he took in a poisonous substance believed to be DDT.He was just twenty nine years of age and very a promising journalist. In the same week,it was again reported in Ghanaweb.com and Modernghana.com of a gentleman who travelled all the way to Pedu in the Central Region to visit his girlfried committed suicide by hanging in the room of his lady.He was also twenty nine.

Also in Cape Coast just to the end of the week another young man took his life!!

Many of us in hearing these heart breaking stories will insult the young men and say what atall will let a man do such a thing to himself,that is when you think nothing can prick you to that far but we should remember they also said the same thing when they heard similar suicide stories.

Threatening To…

After all these earlier stories,you will be baffled we still have people who are threatening to commit suicide just because their problems are choking them.Three days ago I monitored a friend’s posts on wassup and suspected all was not well with him,I called him and what he said was,He can’t be alone and whenever he is alone,he feels negative thoughts coming into his mind,I pushed him further and what he said was that,he now understands why people commit suicide! He is a trained teacher and a Journalist.He is now undergoing serious counseling and monitoring.

Another close pal of mine,who had some misunderstanding with his lady,threatened the lady to kill her and kill himself after,Just because he thinks he has spent too much on the lady and she was being ungrateful.

Threatening stories can go on and on,we should always take time to know why someone is doing what before we judge them.

WHAT IS WRONG

You now understand why I said all is not well!but what is really the root cause of all these suicide thing eliminating our crème de la crème in Ghana.From all the stories,we can see that,DISAPPOINTMENT is one core factor why young men will take their own lives.

We cannot also point to one factor as the main cause but we can say ECONOMIC HARDSHIP and SPIRITUALITIES might be some of them!

THE WAY FORWARD

If any of the three factors above are anything to go by,then stakeholders have a lot of work to do.

I humbly urge prayer groups in the country to add this menace to their prayer bulletins,prayer goups such as AGLOW WOMEN GROUP,MOGPA and other vibrant ones.Also our Christian and Islamic leaders should open up to hear the needs of 5the teeming youths in the country.

Counselling sessions should be free both in the church and professionally to pave way for young people to lay down their worries. ALL IS NOT WELL WITH THE YOUTH and all hands should be on board to prevent more of these Suicide stories. EMMANUEL AGYENFA BOATENG (emmanueagyenfra@yahoo.com)0508609109/0249542342