Sir Sam Jonah has said he find it “baffling” that some voices in the Ghanaian society who were vocal against certain ills, have suddenly gone silent even though those ills persist.
In a speech to Rotarians in Accra titled ‘Down the up escalator – Reflections on Ghana’s future by a senior citizen’, the executive chairman of Jonah Capital, an equity fund based in Johannesburg, South Africa, said: “Days ago, we read shocking news of two teenagers who were arrested for killing a 10-year-old boy for money rituals”.
“This sparked extensive discussion on mainstream as well as social media. Many Ghanaians were expectedly shocked that children of this age were so moved by money that they allegedly killed a human being to get it.
“But if we were to reflect, we would know that this was merely a symptom of a much more deep-seated problem with the entire Ghanaian society. When our children watch TV, what do they see?” he asked.
“Too much religiosity without morality; pastors displaying uncouth behaviour by stepping on pregnant women and slapping congregants; people showing how money can be made without hard work, and when they copy what they see, we appear shocked. Let us stop the pretence!” he said.
“Ladies and gentlemen, what is baffling is that those who used to have voices on these things seem to have lost their voices”, he observed.
In his view, “people speak on issues based on who is in power”.
“Is our deafening silence suggesting that we are no longer concerned about issues that we complained about not too long ago, particularly when those issues persist….. The molestation of and in some cases assassination of journalists, murder of MPs, corruption, the harassment of anti-corruption agents”, he asked.
