I have clearly followed the developments after the recent shoplifting incident at the Mr Price shop at Accra mall. It appears there is unison in the call for justice for those girls.A lot have condemned the act by the security men, I have even heard that the said security men and the shop manager have been called by the police for questioning... interesting.
A friend has even considered replicating the act of the girls just so he can also gain some fame....hahahahaha.....that was on a lighter side but sincerely speaking this shoplifting thing has really shot these girls to fame. Recently I heard a press release from the office of the former president of the republic of Ghana Flt Lieutenant Jerry john Rawlings condemning the act by the security men. Various prominent Women and Human Right groups have equally voiced their condemnation as well.
The girls have virtually been seen everywhere in this country and beyond...well not for good reasons though but we cannot dispute how popular they've become now, perhaps only second to the TWEAAAAAA MCE.
Anyway while I would not advice that friend of mine to replicate this act, I believe his argument about how these girls have shot to fame in no time is not entirely false. How many of us can get the former president to speak for us.
But then I come to this whole saga with a different twist, a different angle, one that most people have overlooked for reasons best known to them -perhaps they are too busy being diplomatic and appearing all gentle-, that is equally important though. But knowing very well how controversial my views may seem, I think its important to state my position on the issue. I am in no way supportive of the inhuman treatment,as some would call it, meted out to the ladies at the mall.
The constitution is very clear on what should be done in cases of this nature. Therefore I find this action no different from lynching alleged thieves or robbers on our streets and as such should not be countenanced.
That said, let me ask you these questions. Sincerely what would you have preferred? Making a mockery of you, making you crawl, taking video footage of you, and allowing you to leave without the usual slaps that normally accompany such arrests-well none sounds interesting I know - OR? Being arrested and sent to the stinky smelly police cells around, staying there for more than the constitutionally accepted 48 hours as has become the norm, being subjected to worse treatment by police officers compared to what would be offered by the mall security officers, and finally being taken to court and heckled to and fro for months because of the snail pace of our judicial system,amidst all the unwanted media coverage, I can imagine the headlines of major newspapers reading "Court adjourns Mr price shoplifting case sine dire(indefinitely)", others; "Girl thieves remanded in police custody" etc and given the fact that they(the three ladies) conceded to stealing, you might end up being made to pay some moneys or possibly go to prison.....the details of that you know already (Ghanaian prisons) are not so nice to talk about.
Sincerely speaking most of us would have chosen the former, because if you weigh the damages carefully, the so-called constitutionally accepted procedure poses worse dehumanizing threats. Let us all for once get out of our hypocrisy and look at issues critically and objectively. Instead of sounding all diplomatic and behaving like this is the worst act of injustice we have ever seen, we should be looking at why somebody would go behind the laws and do things his own way or why somebody would be content with another taking the law into his hands and punishing him when he's wrong like it happened with those girls. Why should outsiders and NGOs be the ones calling on the girls to report to the police? Why, did the ladies say they have a difficulty finding the location of one? Are they even complaining themselves? They are satisfied with the punishment because they know what happens to people in the hands of our policemen.
06. Please let's stop this act of hypocrisy and stop crying more than the bereaved and look at why things like this happen in the first place. We need to fix our institutions, we need to put trust in them, we need to make them work well, we need to give people even offenders reasons why they should choose the police and the courts first.
It is only when we do that, that we can stop some of these things from replicating itself. We should be learning from this, it gives us clues why people prefer to keep domestic violence and rape cases at home. While we are busily condemning this and letting the world know how law abiding we are, we should not forget the good lessons it teaches us. Besides it is equally important that as we condemn the mall security officials for taking the law into their own hands,we don't create the impression that 'go and steal and if anybody dares do anything to you we would come to your defense'. No! That would equally not be right.
The security men didnt do well but we should look beyond that and look at why the girls would choose their punishment over the police cells. ......and I dare challenge anyone to show me one person who would prefer the police station to the punishment given to the girls at the mall ( crawling) and I'll buy him the sea.
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