Response to Obetsebi-Lamptey’s Letter to Mills

From Yaw Adu-Otu

Woodbridge, VA

Thursday, March 29, 2012

Upon reading Mr. Obetsebi-Lamptey’s Open letter to the president of Ghana (Ref.: “Jake Writes to Mills;” Ghanaweb.com, general news of Wednesday, 28 March 2012), I am compelled to respond as follows: If there is ample evidence of Mr. Obetsebi-Lamptey's concerns here about flagrant flashing of hand guns in the public in Ghana, it must be very important for the president to crank up the national security apparatus to clamp down that sort of nonsense.

However, it is fair to suggest that Jerry Rawlings, during his AFRC-PNDC days was the one who promoted the love for handguns in Ghanaian society. Prof. Mills may have inherited Rawlings' harm done to Ghana and must take steps to reverse the situation. I agree with Mr. Obetsebi-Lamptey that nobody has monopoly over violence.

We had enough political violence in the prelude to Ghana's independence and we managed to put that behind us. It is unfortunate that some people without enough sense of the history of political violence in Ghana would have thought of reviving that enemy of a civilized society.

Both Mr. Obetsebi-Lamptey and Prof. Mills are old enough to remember the dangerous state of political violence in the pre-independence Ghana (especially 1956). Therefore, it is strange that Mr. Obetsebi-Lamptey did not cite any gun toting infraction involving any member or supporter of the political opposition - righteous indignation, indeed.

God Bless Ghana.