Does this country have a red line, and where do we draw it?

Some things happen in a country that keeps you wondering where the principles of that nation are and whether it has one at all.

But this country gives you multiple episodes of that almost every week – you have to question whether you live in the real world or you’re just simply utopian.

Take recent news that a health facility dumped an accident victim, with POP cast on both legs in the bush until she died. It is the most senseless thing that could happen but it did, not much a place than a hospital.

But this country has moved on, it is not as much a scandal because the political class have decided it’s not worth it. A few social media posts here and there and that’s it, “let’s get back to other important business.” No Presidential statements like we did when it was George Floyd in the US, not even faux outrage promising action. No high-level visits to the hospital where this barbarity is alleged to have occurred – nothing.

For now, we seem to have taken a statement from the Ghana Health Service that is truly not worth the paper it’s written on, as something to hold on to. We wanted to move on and we have. We may never revisit this to really learn what truly happened and who must be held to account.

And then you have a pliant media, that also treats this like any other story and in two days it’s out of the news. No real coverage, seriously. I’m a journalist, I work with a media house and in a newsroom, so I don’t say this lightly, but our coverage of this story and others similar have just been abysmal.

You’re left wondering, where really does this nation draw the line when it comes to its citizens? Do we ever draw the line at all? On anything? What kind of country allows such injustice to pass without critical action?

Then a few days later, you read in the Fourth Estate the story about two citizens, one woman and a man, unrelated but sharing a story of how brutal this State deals with its poor – rounded up by quite clearly rogue Police, on just baseless charges, without legal representation, either completely or some stages of the legal process, thrown up in jail for months until an NGO walks in to get them freed. And it’s not a big discussion, not even in the media.

It’s almost as though our society has grown absolutely numb to some of these issues or are we just really a heartless bunch of people? This country offers almost nothing to its citizens.

When it comes to the US, there’s something ingrained in all of our minds – that country will stop at nothing to protect its citizens, even if it’s one, especially overseas. Doesn’t matter much that we have all seen the depraved selectivity with which they pursue such goals on some occasions – when it comes to Palestinian Americans for instance. But still, that’s a country that stands for something, that is a people with a red line.

In Ghana, we don’t seem to have any – not when it comes to Madam Akua Denteh, or Madam Yednboka Keena when they are stoned to death, murdered by people they called their neighbours on allegations of witchcraft. Or even the case of the pregnant woman who had to die because the Ambulance Service decided to hold her and her husband to ransom demanding money for fuel. She died, MPs pretended to investigate the matter, I covered this, and there has been nothing on it, years on. We all just moved on, waiting for the next one to occur – I hope not to someone you and I hold dear.

Every one of these stories tells a story about how we value lives and our citizens in this country, especially when it comes to the poor. We must do better, as a people, as a collective, this country must stand for something.