Wednesday 14 February 2007

From boys to devilish young men

Spawn of evil unspeakable

The faces looked out at me with the immensity of the ugliness of their crimes, lips bloated like bodies in the process of decomposition typical of what would not be allowed amongst the living. They would live behind bars for an indeterminate period.

Diamond & Timy Babamuboni and Jude Odigie

Diamond & Timy Babamuboni and Jude Odigie

Boys in their teens trying to be men so fast that they chose heinous crimes that would leave many without breath to air their shocking disgust and appalling rage.

In a time when the quest for more role models of ethnic origin are sought to help our youth see the dignity in labour, the pleasure of education and the joy of service within their communities; these boys give credence to another report that the United Kingdom is the worst place to grow up – it ought not be so.

Nothing could be so evil as to raid a christening, terrify the attendees with the menace of arms and with impunity murder a lady who was shielding her niece from the dastardly event.

They have been sentenced and it only appears too lenient as the news broke today.

From frying pan into the fire

As the judge noted with irony, many of the attendees had fled untrammelled violence in their homelands in Africa seeking refuge, safety and security in England only be to have the same meted out to them by fellow Africans.

It sickens one beyond expression that one of the culprits, having been partner to a murder two weeks before, on the tone and conversation of a mobile phone with a female teenager decided he had been disrespected enough to have to stab her in the heart and kill her.

Whose paps did these evil kids suckle? More so, where of the four, two were siblings who had basically given themselves over to the control of evil so horrid.

The issue of respect concerns me, indeed people need to feel respected but that comes from that person’s contributions in civility that make that person fit into the community to which they belong, it does not fall on you like bird droppings.

Decima Francis on Hard Talk a few weeks ago lamented the growing acceptance amongst young black men of manhood as being able to sire a child at 16. How could that be right?

Respect has to be earned and it is never through unwarranted and extreme violence, and what appears as respect to the seeker is really menace and terror on the part of the onlookers. Whilst you might earn respect through menace, it would not make you respectable.

Ditch civil liberties

Maybe parents, guardians, education and society are failing at making this clear to those who would be the future or if some children have become mules that they are incapable of being productive members of society and their communities, we would have to bite our civil liberty tongues, put them away and throw away the key.

We cannot wait till they have left abominable marks on our welfare and comfort before we are spurred to do what we cannot desist from doing in the name of justice having left victims in their trail.

Of these kids, three were Nigerian, they leave many of us so ashamed of things that we had no hand in, this might also impart negatively on other Nigerian youth who could be viewed capable of unnecessary violence just for the sake of lucre.

My heart is to poured out to the families of Zainab Kalokoh (Sierra Leonean) who was shot and murdered at 33 and Ruth Okechukwu (Nigerian parentage) who at 18 was stabbed in the heart for a mobile phone conversation that apparently was disrespectful to someone who was also 18 – it still beggars belief.

Eventually, these young men might earn their respect if anyone deigns to visit the grounds in which they would be lain when dead, in unmarked graves ready to be dug up by dogs and fed on by vultures – it would be a life behind bars and I would team up to protest any effort to free them – throw away the key and make sure it was done where the ocean is deepest.

References

Doubts persist over killers' ages

Teens guilty of christening death

Killer admits second murder

The From Boyhood to Manhood Foundation

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