CHARLESTON CHURCH MASSACRE, VICTORY FOR CHRISTIANS.

a scene at Charleston's Emanuel AME church after the shooting

      On Thursday morning, America wake up to witness another gruesome gun violence. A 21 year old man had walked into a church in Charleston-South Carolina, sat in an evening bible sturdy class for about an hour then later open fire on them killing 9 people in cold blood. 3 men and 6 women ages between 25 and 82.
The reason for this crime was not far fetched because he made his mission clear to the people that he was there to kill Black people. So right from the onset we knew this was a hate crime but one thing that was not clear was , what motivated him to commit such barbaric act and why that particular church?
Answers to these question was not readily available until 14 hours later when he was arrested and in his own confession to the police admitted to the murder and said he did that to ' spark a racial war" so it was easy to add that he chose the Emanuel AME church because it is one of the oldest African -American church with great historic heritage .
After this confession he was tagged as the ' face of evil" on social media. On a second thought one could not agree less to this description because who on earth does not want peace of mind except the devil,right???
However in the wake of all the pain, hurt,anger, trauma and provocation caused by his action, one thing stood up tall and that is FORGIVENESS. It resonate with all the survivors and their relatives as well.
Apart from the out pouring  of love from sympathizers to the victims, their families and the people of Charleston,it is amazing to see and hear almost all the grieving families talk about Forgiveness.
Speaking for the  first time to her son's killer in court a very emotional Felicia Sanders, one of the survivors who played dead and laid on top of her granddaughter to save her and watched her 25 year old son, Tywanza Sanders shot multiple times did something remarkable. She said " ...every fiber in me hurts but I forgive you and pray to God to have mercy on your soul". 
Believe it or not, their Courage , kind heart and act of forgiveness have indeed calmed nerves down and drastically reduced the level of outrage that may have resulted in serious retaliation. And this act of kindness shown by these people in my opinion is not just professed in vacuum. It takes the power of the Gospel and through the grace of  our Lord Jesus Christ to be able to smile at the storm in a very difficult moment such as this. It is only in Christ Jesus that we are able to forgive and  also find forgiveness. This proves the beauty of Christianity.
Surely " the word of God is tested and tried" and the greatest of all virtues is Love: that one may even show love to his enemies.
We all know that if this terrible provocation had happen in other religion, hell would have broken loose.
It is easy to revenge and retaliate for a justifiable course such as this,  but hey, if the victims and those directly affected are calling for peace and forgiveness, why will anyone further cast the first stone or cry more than the bereaved. Sparking any kind of war, be it racial, ethnic, religious, political or what so ever, is evil. Peace is relative so lets all try to pursue peace where it may be found and make the world a better place.
May God who through his power has given these families the grace to forgive, heal their broken hearts and grant them comfort and grant the departed eternal life for the repose soul of their departed.

TREATING THE FIRE/ FLOOD VICTIMS AS PIECE OF TRASH...#THISMUSTSTOP.

         

As I write this piece of article about the Goil  filling station fire explosion, I do not intend to talk about what caused it or who caused it. Enough has been said already. I just want to draw our attention to a very sickening observation made in the aftermath of the tragedy.

Although this is not the first time this is happening,yet it was shocking to see it happening in the full glare of authorities.
As reported earlier, the people who died in the fire were believed to be stranded passengers, drivers and pedestrians who were either stacked in traffic or had gone to seek shelter at the filling station from the heavy down pour on that fateful day.

Tragically they met their untimely death. Responding to the distress calls, Ghana Fire Service and the Police according to reports swiftly rushed to help quench the fire and to also rescue victims
To show support and sympathy, many leaders from across the country including the President have visited the scene and in describing those who died,  this phrase ' Burnt Beyond Recognition "  was on the lips of almost  all of them.

Undoubtedly,to the ordinary person, the victims were burnt beyond recognition however, one would have thought that with all these big bosses from the various security agencies at the scene, at least some forensic effort would be made to identify if not all some of the victims to console their families. That was not done. They rather chose the "Normal" and easiest way like we see  every day in such cases to just draw a conclusion that non could be recognise and to further bruise the wounds of their families, dumped them like piece of trash.

 I could not believe my eyes to see how the deceased persons were being parked and virtually thrown onto each other in a pick-up truck like some wasted animals in the presence of the police and worse of it all, a minister of State, Mahama Ayariga was captured in a TV interview pathetically pointing the cameras to the pick-up truck that was loading those  who died at the scene.

And the police who was suppose to guard the scene as a crime scene just stood by and allowed people including the media who out of curiosity and lack of respect for human dignity took pictures of the dead bodies  and carelessly shared it on all the media platforms without any thoughts of bluring the gory images. Where did we go so wrong that simple common sense seems to have eluded us.

As people, we do lots of many things wrong and makes them appear normal. It is simple absurd and so unprofessional to treat people like that.  Every person, whether dead or alive deserves to be treated with some respect and dignity. Most often when we try to correct the way we carelessly do things by comparing it to the developed country , others are quick to argue that Ghana is not America or Europe and that we are not there yet.The question is, when?? after 58 years of managing our own affairs.
 Meanwhile it will interest you to know that some of this state officials and so-called experts demand their salaries in Dollars and want to be paid with same standards as their International colleagues.
What more then  will be the game-changer for Ghana. This tragedy did not happened in any where remote other than Circle, right at the center of the capital city, Accra, where all the headquarters of these state institutions and security agencies are located.

Today, #Ghanamourns and we hope this will never happen again. However, the raining season will end and as usual politics will take the better part of all the promises, assurances and the directives forgetting that over 150 precious lives perished in this tragedy and that we owe their souls the obligation to do the right things. Lets all have some respect for ourselves and make the system work.
Doing things the wrong way dose not make them Normal.
In solidarity to the families and the memory of the victims I join my colleagues in Citifm in saying #thismuststop.