When I read the news on the boy (see, we don’t even know his name) killed and buried in the kitchen floor and how his mother and siblings have helped to cover up the crime, it makes me think of the ‘parallels’ now prevailing in this country.

Surely many of us would have passed judgments on his mother. Why did she help to cover up this crime?  Did she not have feeling of right and wrong, of love and affection toward her son and the sense of justice inside her?

As usual, we can speculate the various reasons why she behaved the way she did. Maybe she was financially and economically dependent on the perpetrator of this crime. Maybe she was under threats of harm and danger. Maybe she was ignorant of the gravity of this crime. As for the boy’s siblings, maybe they were too young and innocent to know at this stage of their life the severity of the crime committed.

Let’s look now at events unfolding each day in our country. Let’s look at the various institutions and levers of power which were established under our system of government as the custodians of democracy and public interests. Have they been playing their rightful roles? Are they blind to the malfeasance now taking place blatantly? Are they too stupid not to see it?

It is really an incomparable shame to depend on a 90-year-old man to try to set the thing right for all us.

To me, all our levers of power and institutions are like that boy’s mother and siblings. They were magnificently present, saw the wrongs committed unabatedly, but were unable to do an iota to correct the wrong.

Some are too stupid to know the full extent of the wrongs committed and how they will eventually affect the country adversely.

Some are probably too dependent on the largesse of the regime to care for anything else.

Some probably have too many skeletons in their closets to be able to speak their mind. Perhaps some are already under threats and blackmail.

Some can’t wait for their colleagues to resign so that they can replace them.

Some can’t wait for another contract or another position to be appointed to.

So like the boy’s mother and siblings, these levers of power prefer to turn the other way even though they know this is against their conscience. They are helpless eunuchs unable to do a single thing right.

This is what happens when we have unfettered consolidation of power. This is what happens when a regime has amassed enough of a war chest to pay, buy or threaten anyone of substance into submission.