In November 2010, the Ghana newspaper with the largest circulation, the Daily Graphic, carried a heart-rending report about how an old woman, obviously suffering from dementia, had lost her way in the port city of Tema and entered the home of people she did not know. She was discovered in one of the bedrooms of the house, and since no-one knew who she was – and she didn’t look like a burglar – it was concluded that she was a ‘witch’ who had been ‘flying’ to rendezvous with others, had ‘run out of gas’, and had landed in a room that wasn’t hers.

Eventually, a Pentecostal priest came on the scene and decided that what the old woman needed was ‘exorcism’. They needed olive oil for this, but since there was none available, they decided to use kerosene instead. Somehow, the kerosene caught fire and the old woman was burnt alive. She died as she was being conveyed to a hospital by passers-by who took pity on her.

The old woman’s photograph appeared in the Daily Graphic and so, for a while, there was general interest in her case. Then she vanished from the news, just as she had vanished from life. A few of the people who were present when she was burnt alive were arrested and taken to court. But, as usual, their case was ‘postponed’. I haven’t read anything more about it. Yet Ghanaian journalists have a very high opinion about themselves and award one another prizes at the end of every year. I hope that when the get together this year, they will award one of their news editors a prize in the category of ‘Least Followed-up Story’.

I was musing about this the other day when another story caught my eye. The Ghanaian Chronicle, which carried the story, reported that: ‘A woman in her eighties, suspected of being a witch, was found naked yesterday, in the middle of heaped stones at the Military Dogs Training School compound in Accra, by some soldiers who were on their daily patrol duties’.

Like the ‘witch’ who was burnt to death, this woman too was probably in a hallucinatory state when she was found. But neither the soldiers, nor the police to whom she was referred, were of any help to her. A Red Cross official did take her to the Accra Psychiatric Hospital. But the medical assistant on duty allegedly ‘refused to admit the hapless woman.’

The Red Cross official next drove her to the Mamobi Polyclinic. Here too, nurses on duty as well as a doctor sighted by The Chronicle, refused to attend to her. Their contention was that ‘they needed a “police extract” [report"> before they could attend to her.’

This story shows that apart from being callous, Ghanaian officialdom is hemmed in by red tape. When a sick human being reaches a hospital or clinic, the first thing to do is to provide that person with emergency care or first aid. But apparently, not today’s Ghana. First, there must be a ‘police extract’, because no-one wants to be responsible for having brought the woman – in case there is money to be paid as medical fees. Yet, our intellectuals boast to one another that we have a traditionally ‘humanitarian attitude’ to life, due to our ‘extended family’ system.

Rubbish. To many of our people, politics is now engaged in almost solely for personal gain, not to be used to serve the larger society. Ghanaians have thus transformed themselves into followers of the ‘market economy’, in the process of which they have, in my view, made themselves a disgrace to both their nation and humanity. And this in a country whose people could once hold their heads up proudly and say, ‘We are Ghanaians and proud of it.’

Another possible explanation of the attitude of the officials who refused to help the old woman is that they probably believed she was a ‘witch’ and deserved whatever she got. Some might even have feared that of they went near her, she would do them harm through witchcraft. That is also a load of rubbish. Enough money has been spent on educating Ghanaians for them to allow themselves to fall prey to all manner of superstitious beliefs. The number of ‘priests’ who ply their trade on the street corners in Ghana, suggests, however, that religious terrorism is hiding thinly beneath Ghana's social fabric, waiting to erupt into barbarous behaviour at the least opportunity.

The Ghana Ministry of Health should immediately instruct its hospital staff that accident and emergency sections of hospitals are meant to try and save the lives of people brought there, whether they have money to pay medical bills or not. If it does that, it will communicate a message to the hospital authorities that the nation of Ghana values its citizens and that anyone who will be seen to have neglected a person who has been injured in an accident, or other emergency, will have the nation to answer to. For a nation is as good, or bad, as the citizens whose lives it values, or does not value.

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* Cameron Duodu is a writer and commentator.
* Please send comments to editor[at]pambazuka[dot]org or comment online at Pambazuka News.