I am no expert on issues of the law or the constitution of Ghana. I am like most Ghanaians I judge most issues on moral grounds. If an action is morally right and humanly possible as suggested by the late John Evans Atta Mills (of blessed memories) I readily endorse such actions.
The sentence of the Montie three (Alistair Nelson, Godwin Ako Gunn and Salifu Maase aka Mugabe) has been discussed in the media for some time now. But the issue has lost fame as the media pay attention to other issues of state concern. And it seems to me the three may not receive any presidential pardon.
I was driving through Roman Ridge a few days ago with a friend. We chance on some prisoners weeding. The sight of the prisoners in the community weeding triggered a discussion between my friend and I. Why is Accra so dirty, why are our gutters choked if our prisons are over populated. Why don’t the state throw in more prisoners in such areas to help clean our city.
Any way as I said before, I am no expert on the law or the dynamics of the Prisons Services. But as I was thinking about the idea of prisoners helping keep the city clean, it occurred to me that indeed prison sentence may not be the only sure means to correct behaviours especially for celebrities who receive short term sentences. Example of such sentence includes people like Kwaw Kese who was sentenced a day in prison for public smoking of marijuana.
Also Ken Kuranchie and Stephen Atubiga received 10 and 3 days respectively for contempt of court during the election petition. I am aware through news bulleting that our prisons are overcrowded or over populated and lacks some basic facilitates. All the above mention citizens returned with the horrific stories of the poor nature of our prisons. This led me thinking about how best we can correct behaviours of our citizens without necessary sentencing them to a day or two in prisons. The idea of community service then came to mind?
It is general acknowledge that the prisons service is for correctional purposes. It is therefore possible for behaviours to be corrected without the prisons. Especially for people like Kwaw Keses, Mr. Atubiga, Mr. Ken Kuranchie and most recently the Montie trio. I am convinced these people could have been corrected without necessary sending them to prison. In elsewhere, we hear stories of celebrities, politicians and businessmen who were sentenced to community service instead of prisons.
Just to mention a few, Silvio Berlusconi, Chris Brown, Naomi Campbell, Snoop Dogg and many others have all received community services from offences ranging from assault to illegal possession of drugs. So why is prisons sentence the only option left for Ghanaian celebrities who fault or offend. I am in no way condemning prison sentences but I am suggesting that, considering the deplorable state of our prisons it will do the state a lot of good if people who are given short sentences like those mention above are sentence to community services like cleaning the gutters, white washing the street, weeding among other things. This can save the state some valuable resources and also reduced politically tension especially in the case of the Montie trio.
I think for example all the political castigation and the unnecessary pressure on the president to pardon them could have be avoided if our judicial system thought of other avenues (community service) as medium for correcting behaviours. After all what will a day in prison really do to Kwaw Kese. Again what did three days really do to Atubiga. How is the state going to benefit from the Montie 3? Are they going to be engage in hard labour like hard core criminals? Probably not. Probably they are going to receive the best treatments and hospitality they ever received in their lives as some high profile personalities have already visited them.
Their celebrity might even soar high. We all can accept our City need a lot of clean up each day, so why don’t we engage these celebrities in community service rather than sentencing them to prisons. In my candid opinion the Montie trio can do a lot better when given mowers, shovels, pick axe, wheel barrows among other tools to help clean up the city. It is even more visible than sentencing them into prisons where they may become “Lords” and waste state resources. On the street they even become better examples to all who see them weeding or cleaning the streets. They also will live in their own houses, use their own water and electricity and food saving the state some resources.