TAKE BACK THIS AWARD (NOV 7)

THERE is this African saying that the elderly will prevent the grain that is being dried from being soaked by rain.
The elderly, by virtue of the wisdom he or she possesses and knowing that the grain could go bad when soaked by the rain, will instruct the children to evacuate it even as the children remain oblivious of the rain.
In African societies such as ours, people have advanced in age and have in the course of their lives acquired more wisdom and experience and are often regarded as sages and the appropriate level of respect and even reverence are accorded them.
Such very wise people more often than not lead good and exemplary lives which the rest of society, especially the youth, are encouraged to emulate.
They are also positioned to offer the requisite level of guidance and counselling to the younger generation, who, if they imbibe such positive values given, grow up to be useful and responsible members of society.
Thus the elderly have a bounded duty to specially mentor, guide and protect the youth against the bad and negative influences of social miscreants and serve as role models whose behaviour and conduct the youth yearn to emulate.
When an elderly person indulges in acts of malfeasance, moral turpitude or other licentious behaviour as would demean or lower his or her stature in the eyes of right thinking members of society, he or she loses the moral right to assert his or her status and to counsel the younger generation.
Only recently we carried a series of exclusive reports which unearthed the great depths of moral turpitude of Mr Enoch Nii Lamptey-Mills, who impregnated a 16-year-old girl in the school of which he is the proprietor and elder of the Governing Council and Administration.
After committing this atrocious act, he reneged on his word to the girl to take good care of her, build her a house and get her back to school to continue her education.
These multiple acts of having carnal knowledge of a teenager, impregnating her, breaking the promise to adequately cater for her and get her back to school, constitute an abuse of child rights and accordingly a ringing indictment on Mr Enoch Nii Lamptey-Mills.
His unmasking portrays him as unfit to head an important institution of learning which his late father strove to build by dint of hard work to groom the youth for the onerous task of leadership of the nation tomorrow.
We, therefore, endorse the call by the Minister for Women and Children’s Affairs, Ms Akua Sena Dansua, for the national award conferred on him by former President J.A. Kufuor to be revoked and accordingly withdrawn.
The out-of-court settlement ordered by the court which was trying the case has left a sour taste in the mouths of many lovers of justice and fair play.
The question has been posed whether an ordinary man would have walked away a free man as Lamptey-Mills has, if that ordinary man had committed the same act.
National awards are honourable and sacred instruments and should only go to personalities of honourable disposition and conduct.
Leaving such honours in the hands of morally deprived individuals of questionable conduct debase such awards and make them objects of national scorn and derision.
This country deserves better and must do right by all means.