The Ghana Catholic Bishops’ Conference (GCBC) has described the recent murder of a ten-year-old boy at Kasoa by two teenagers as a “national security threat”.
The conference is worried about the upsurge of “get-rich-quick” programmes on national television and social media.
“It is important for us to see these developments as a national security threat and act speedily to deal with this threat,” said a statement by the president of the GCBC, Most Rev Philip Naameh. He called on regulators to act swiftly to clamp down on the activities of persons behind such programmes.
“We, therefore, call on all major stakeholders, especially the regulators of our media space, to clamp down on activities of these fraudulent spiritualists, mallams, pastors and others who through their audio-visual content continue to propagate evils and their ‘get-rich-quick’ activities on our television stations and social media platforms,” the statement said.
The statement added: “It is sad to hear that the decision of these teenagers was to kidnap their victim for a ransom and then present the victim to a spiritualist for rituals, thoughts derived from watching some of the audio-visual content on television with the promise to make people wealthy within a short period of time.”
Background
Nicholas Kenni and Felix Nyarko are being held on suspicion of killing Ishmael Mensah in Atia Coca-Cola, a suburb of Kasoa in the Central Region.
The two teenagers were arrested over the weekend over the suspected ritual murder.
The police said their investigations show that the two teenagers were allegedly acting on the orders of a fetish priest who demanded human parts to perform a money-making ritual for them.
Confession
According to the police, the duo confessed to killing Mensah on Saturday 3 April in the Coca-Cola suburb, near the Great Lamptey Mills School.
The crime is said to have taken place in an uncompleted building. The police said the suspects hit the victim with clubs and building blocks several times, killing him in the process.
It is said that they proceeded to bury the boy in the uncompleted building, hoping to return in the evening for the body, but neighbours who chanced on the remains raised the alarm, leading to their arrest.
The body of the dead child has since been exhumed and deposited at the Police Hospital for autopsy.
Below is the full statement:
Fred Dzakpata
Asaase Radio 99.5 – tune in or log on to broadcasts online
Follow us on Twitter: @asaaseradio995
#asaaseradio #TVOL
