Two days ago I published an article here calling my people(Bimbilla) to listen to the voice of peace and lay down their weapons. I copied the article to my website (www.ehmkannde.com) and this was circulated to the best of the mechanisms I had access to. I was smiling loud in my heart that these words would mean much to the people that would read......
..but was I to smile for long? I left Tamale to Bimbilla just to get a bit of mama's food before school reopened not knowing I was moving into a war zone. I was in Bimbilla by 4pm. I settled quickly and started working on my articles.
Just about few minutes to 9:00 pm I heard loud gun shots from my room.
I was terrified to my bones. What the hell was going on? Was I to run out to find out or just hide away under my sits in the room?
I could not type any longer, I sat there waiting for the news to travel to me. I am not sure the gun shots went on past 8 minutes. Soon I heard my dad talking about it in the compound. Apparently he had received an update via a phone call.
What was it? Two unknown people rode a motto bike to certain ghetto with a shoot to kill mission. Later, I gathered from an eye witness who narrated the whole incidence. Bimbilla had an on going curfew which lasted 10pm to 4 am. So this group of youth usually sat at their ghetto till the curfew period then they disperse to their various homes. On this faithful day the mission was to wipe them all out. What was their crime? They support oneside of the factions involved in the current chieftaincy huddles in the town. The assailants rode a motto bike (one carrying the other). They stopped, removed their guns and started shooting at them defenseless.
The same attackers arranged people at exit points to finish off people who were trying to escape the massacre. At this time their order apparently was to kill anybody on sight because even free riders were being shot at. Immediately afterwards, they took their bike and ran off shooting at anything on their way as they flee. This led to the death of 4 people and bullet wounds to about 8 others.
Following this event, yesterday Bimbilla was as silent as the word itself....As I moved through the town reminiscing the liveliness of the old times I felt terrible. I felt like I should just flee the town never to return as many have done. But if I can do that, how about my family? How about my friends? Can I take every good man away from the bad guys?
I was told a man becomes a ruler to rule over people, so if you have to kill off your own people in order to rule who would you rule over? The unfortunate thing is that everyone knows the people who are responsible for these attacks but the security have no guts to do anything about it.
Is it worth risking my life to save a folk that seems to enjoy only destruction?
I have organised the youth several times to undertake activities that needed support from the authorities to help in the peace building process but did the authority care at all? It looks like some people are profiting from the lack of peace and they don't want it over.
What is it I can do to make a big impact in the peace building process? I am honestly out of ideas and right now I am not ready to wake up to find a group of hooligans holding guns and knives over my head to cut it off. I have dreams to build and I have a world to contribute to. What should I do?