Vigilante or Status Quo?

The world we live in today is made up of both good and bad. But as to which outweighs the other, I don’t know much about that. As far as I know, good goes with bad and I always tell people that as much as they think of the best out of everything, they should also think of the worst that could happen.

Growing up, the crime rate in my neighborhood and my country at large wasn’t alarming because then, we had jobs for almost everyone, the economy was good and everyone was somewhat okay financially. With this, you wouldn’t often hear of robbery cases and what have you because most of the youth had things doing. I remember how my uncles used to go to work at my dad’s shops after they came back from their classes at the university. Through this, they were able to earn some extra cash while helping the family.

Today, the story is different. Most of the youth today have no jobs or anything doing. Some of my mates from back at the university are still at home after over two years with no job. This isn’t the story of my classmates but almost the entire youth in Ghana. If you don’t know someone up there, you’d have to pray for a miracle to happen. With this, the crime rate today as compared to ten years ago has tripled if I’m to be honest. The rate of drug abuse has also tripled and all this is contributing to making our communities unsafe for us all.

I’m currently staying in a different region in my country which is far away from my home. The population isn’t as huge the capital city where I come from and so I thought the crime rate would be low here and this place would be safe. But I was wrong. A while back, I had a near death experience in my neighborhood right outside my residence where I almost lost my life. Thanks to a stranger who came to my aid, I’m still alive today but I had to say goodbye to my phone. I’m not y only one with this story, there have also been many robbery and rape cases over the year in this community and nothing is being done about it.

If I had the money, I don’t think I’d want to use it to fight crime because you can never take crime away a hundred percent. Also, I would rely on the government to reduce the crime rate because well, eve the authorities are corrupt and so it’s more of the same thing, just that one party has power and the other doesn’t. What I would do is to use the money and platform that I have to empower the youth, because the devil does really find work for the idle hands.

This way, instead of arresting people and taking them to jail and wasting their lives away, I get to give them a second chance in a country and system that failed them. Not everyone involved in crime really wanted to get into that, some didn’t really have a choice . At some point, it’s all about survival. I wouldn’t want to be the one who made things worse. I want to be the one who changed the narrative.

all images belong to me.