We need to have proper value systems

In the last few weeks, newspaper pages and television screens have been awash with images of two murdered girls.

The first was Rongo University student Sharon Otieno, who was expectant at the time she was brutally killed. And then came Monica Kimani.

Ms Kimani had just arrived from South Sudan when she was killed. And just a few days ago, there was the horror of the bus accident that killed 58 people.

Where are we heading? Of course we have also seen stories of people killing their wives and children or wives killing their husbands. What world have we built for ourselves?

When a society goes on about life without being guided or driven by the correct value system, then we are bound to see a culture of death like we are experiencing at the moment.

There has been too much death. People begin to perceive the reality of human life as being of no value whatsoever.

POLICE

I am told that our education system is being reviewed. Is it possible that the element of respect for critical values for humanity could be given some prominence in that review?

Our institutions of governance and cultural ones have probably also let us down. What has been the role of the police in allowing part of this evil culture to take root in society?

Have they been as diligent as they ought to be in thoroughly investigating and dealing with crime — particularly against human life?

How about the courts of law? It it possible that they have not done their job well, thus allowing criminals to get away with crime?

Proper value systems are taught during the period of socialisation as people grow up.

RE-EVALUATE

This is where institutions such as the family, religion, school and the like come in. What has been their failure that has contributed to the rise of the negative culture that we are witnessing?

Even social institutions such as the media may have a question to ask themselves or examine their operations in this regard.

In short, all of society has to re-evaluate itself in the face of the negative culture of death that we see daily or else the future will be all doom.

In the case of the two girls whose cases are being investigated and prosecution recommended, police seem to have demonstrated that with determination, they can do a good job. They have the capacity to do so.

It would appear that in the past there were situations where either police on the beat or their commanders did not want to move.

Fr Wamugunda is Dean of Students, University of Nairobi; [email protected]