The tragic passage of Paul Lucky Dube at the hands of South Africa’s criminal gangland must serve a lesson to our nation that, criminality thrives best in a permissive democratic environment. Is Ghana, far off from the brink of unbridled violent crime? My response, is no. Matter of fact, while South Africa readily accepts its image as violent society, of which it surely is, Ghana denies the ominous danger, and projects herself as a virgin nation-state whose thinned hymen is immune to violent crime. In my opinion, the inaction of the state to allow the effectuation of tougher laws to hamstring violent criminality, for fear of losing popularity, could turn around to threaten the intransience of the state.

Ghana’s history with armed lawlessness did not stop with the arrest, and incarceration of Atta-Ayi. In recent times, our nation has witnessed the use of unprecedented violence to sniff life out Roko Frimpong and Enim; two brazen daylight assassinations that bear the hallmarks of professional killers in the service of an inner circle of a faceless indigenous Mafiosi. Franchising criminality on very attractive terms, the financiers of this surging anomie have devolved violence from the centre to the margins where security is lax.

Why has the state, then, failed in its efforts to curb increasing violence despite its constitutional prerogative to use legitimate violence, and national resources to prevent the awful cycle of this monstrosity? The answer is not only mind-boggling, yet equally interesting. First of all, the nation’s Police Service is interspersed with few criminal elements who are themselves in league with members of the nation’s criminal underworld. If the preceding was not the case, which it is, given the facts, how could a police officer sign-up for a Kalashnikov assault rifle, and join his criminal cohorts to rob unsuspecting citizens? The cited case is currently before the Accra Regional Tribunal, and Otchere Gabby Darko is representing the accused police officer.

It is also worth stating that, while in police custody, some of these criminals recruit certain Police officer as couriers to convey message to their friends. Whether these officers know the implications of their actions or not, this coded information is further used terrorize the public, especially witnesses to the crime. If the above assertion is not true, which it is, how could Baby-Nii, one of Ghana’s most notorious armed robbers, who was being escorted to the Nsawam Hospital, and was in handcuffs able to overpower two uniformed wardens, take away their guns away, undo the handcuffs, hijacked a car, and drive it to Togo without any hue-and-cry from the escorting officers? Can the Honourable Agyemang-Hackman who was then, the Minister responsible for the nation’s Prisons explain why he countenanced this Houdini’s tale without any concrete action?

The mindless policy within the nation’s security services which requires officers to produce the suspects, after they have taken bribes, and let suspects disappear in thin air, underscores the intractable criminal attitude with the nation’s neocolonial security establishments. First of all, how can those in the upper-tiers of power expect a police officer to produce a suspect when the said officer knows that, no disciplinary action would be taken against him/her? The only senior police officers whom I known have shown the courage to detain their own, for dereliction of duty, are Peter Tinganaban Nafuri (ex-DBNI/IGP), and the late David Walenkaki (DCOP in-charge of Operations). To these two gentlemen, a lapse in national security amounts to the death of a nation. To them, it is pointless to sacrifice the physical security of an entire nation for an individual’s greediness.

But the question is; how many of these fine professional officers can our nation produce? How do we expect our nation to generate police officers with irreproachable characters when criminal senior police officers are offered immunity against criminal prosecution? If the end of Kofi Boakye’s narco-investigation could not retrieve the 536 kilograms of the missing cocaine, and punish the senior police officers involved, how does the President, the Minister for Interior, and the Attorney General, in their wisdom, expect the nation’s emaciated junior enforcement officers to preserve the law? While there is a positive correlation between the nation’s narcotic enterprise and armed violence, some of the nation’s police officers, in secret, feed on the nation’s narco-kingpins. Lately, some officers in the police establishment have added the location of, and extortion of monies from, the nation’s narco-lords to their official duties. Having certain members of the security services turn into narco-tax collectors is dangerous business, and must not be tolerated. Maybe, encouraging the preceding will decrease our nation’s overdependence on foreign loans.

The nation’s judiciary, and some of our judges cannot be absolved from knowingly granting bail to criminals whose surety is a fictitious, and prevents the state from tracing the guarantor should the accused default to attend court hearing. The crevice within our criminal justice system, and the pretense that none exists, is a looming threat to the universal values of social justice, and the earlier we seek remedy, the better. As sad as it sounds, some judges abuse show-cause hearings, and release violent criminals without considering the likelihood that, they may recidivate.

How can the nation address violent crime? In my judgment, the mind forms the basis of human actions, and criminal actors cannot be pardoned by using the unsteady theory of determinism, and the absurdities of rehabilitation. After all, those who choose the path of banditry are driven by material variables, and not biological impulsivities as some would suggest. Given that criminal choices are based on free will, and the determination to use violence to effectuate ones goals, the reinstatement of the death penalty to excise the nation’s moral cancer may not be a bad idea, after all.

As always, there is a segment of faith-based individuals who would contend that, the application of capital punishment does not eliminate crime. I agree. However, the Achilles' heel in the moralist argument is that, the application of the capital punishment, in grave cases, is not to eliminate crime. On the obverse, capital punishment is applied to minimize the recurrence of needless violence by warning would-be violent criminals that, the disincentives that attend their sadistic conduct far outweigh the anticipatory rewards. These tough laws, if applied as the Singaporeans have done on narco-smugglers, will restore our nation’s interred pride as a peaceful nation. Hope all is well. Good day and cheers.

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