Talent, Compassion, Diligence

Today, I want to talk the talented prisoner. It is a refreshing story, a tiny bright spot in a motherland atmosphere beclouded in dumsor darkness, unprotected child interests, and thievery that has robbed the motherland of development.

It is the story of a talented prisoner, compassionate prison officers and a lawyer told by a hardworking journalist applying his enterprise reporting skills without waiting to be fed with boring routine stuff from a copycat congress administration. It is a story of success in achieving a nation building feat.

Twenty-six-year-old Alhassan Ouattara had fallen victim to the justice system through the machinations of a wicked father. In prison, he landed in the charge of professionals discharging their responsibilities as agents of correction and not as enforcers of punishment. And to his rescue came Samaritan Lawyer Simon Gaga who learned about the victim's fate from a radio news report filed by journalist Seth Kwame Boateng.

A heart-warming story it is; a break from the darkness of doom that has descended upon a motherland and is killing her softly with stress, depression, anxiety and worry; with everything that is despair. The motherland is now the land of where there is no hope. To read about the hopeless, pleasantly surprisingly rescued from bondage is a sign of hope.

Humanity is compassion. To be human is to be compassionate. The Alhassan Ouattara story testifies to human compassion. It is a reminder that we are made to care. At the same time, the story damns the congress practice of I care for my pocket so let me find the deepest of pockets to fill at everyone else's expense.

The story by Seth Kwame Boateng gives hope to the fatherless of the world, they who I once called upon to unite. Lawyer Simon Gaga is not the genitor, but he has displayed enough of a pater with his act. With stories like that, no one will have cause to worry about or quarrel over the role of radio in nation building.

Inadvertently, it is also a story that exposes a piece of inefficiency in the policing system where police officers manage to advise a suspect against his interest. Sent into jail by that advice, it was prison officers, colleague law enforcers of the police, who tended his wounded soul until the rescue came.

The enterprising journalist's story has served a public interest purpose, given voice to the voiceless and achieved justice for the underprivileged and vulnerable, all in one stroke. It has had direct positive impact. That is a story worthy of acclamation and award in this wretched atmosphere of master plans designed for thieving public funds everywhere. Today it is stealing by judgment debt payments; tomorrow through ghost names on payroll; the next time selling publicly owned banks; another time pocketing loan money.

It is a case of coincidence of compassion (prison officers, lawyer, journalist) showing the humanness in some compatriots of the motherland not the thieving ones who have squandered through thievery our common resources.

Imagine a situation of a journalist self-critiquing for such stories and the media house the journalist works for self-examining for that kind of content. It is a pity congress has resolved in wickedness that I will never be allowed anywhere near owning a medium. If I owned a medium, in taking stock, I would ask how many of such stories have been produced over the period before I ask for the cash balance.

It is unlikely I will ever own one for as long as there is something called congress with the stolen mandate to assign national broadcast frequencies asset. For six good years, they have denied my community a frequency because they have seen somewhere my name is associated with the application. They forced a poor small community to cough up non-refundable US$100 as application fee!

Just like vulnerable children with disability found no help from the social protector, it is doubtful children of the type begat of irresponsible fatherhood of the Alhassan typology would ever find protection from the motherland state. I will continue harping heartlessly denying protection for disabled children thereby banishing them from schooling.

It is obvious Alhassan Ouatarra needs protection through support. Yet I have neither heard nor read a word about protection for the young victim. He needs protection from a vicious father and he needs liberation from the scar stigma attached to his ex-con status.

With they who care not about issues which bring no money into their pockets fully in charge, Alhassan may have to bide his counting on a more compassionate motherland leader for protection.

Thank you compassionate correction officers; thank you good Samaritan lawyer; thank you enterprising journalist; thank you the fatherless for your courage.

The unprotected shall one day overcome when a thieving congress would be no more.