As a child, you hear of bad things happening to people elsewhere or sometimes your friends but you are always invincible.

There is this thinking that NO, God cannot allow that to happen to my family.

That is true until one of those stories you have heard strikes you. Then, you are brought to reality that even you are not immune; if it happened to someone, it can happen to you once you don’t take the necessary precaution.

For me, it was late afternoon of July 27, 2013. I had read and heard of people being involved in accidents but on that Sunday, the reality struck when an Accra-bound Toyota bus knocked me off my bicycle at Ho.

My left humerus was fractured, and a look at the X-ray, I never knew I would get my arm back but hey I used the same arm to win a combat and got my green belt.

As much as I don’t like talking about the event, though not life-changing, I can’t but recount it after seeing Rwandans recount their life-changing experience 25 years on.

Pictures of victims of the Rwandan genocide at the memorial in Kigali

For you who don’t know the story, April 7, 1994, a 100-day genocide in Rwanda left 800,000 persons affected with at least 500,000 of them dead.

The two groups - Tutsi and Hutu - in the small East African country had struggled for dominance over each other for decades, of course, influenced by the ‘wise’ Europeans.

On April 7, the President who was a Hutu was assassinated and the Tutsis were blamed for it. Despite their denial, the Hutus embarked on a killing spree of every Tutsi until neighbouring Uganda backed Tutsi rebels to fight back and ended the genocide.

Read: Everything you need to know about the 1994 Rwandan genocide               

Despite the media’s focus on the tribe or otherwise class aspect, the core of the conflict, like most if not all other conflicts, was power; who gets what, when and where (credit given).

Looking at Ghana’s political atmosphere, only a naïve person would harbour illusions that a degeneration is not imminent; unless there is a radical change of heart from these bellyful tricksters.

The latest evidence? The Ayawaso West Wuogon by-election violence. Slowly the media has drifted its attention from the expected but never coming peace talks between the two biggest political parties who harbour the militias who carry out ‘small’ acts of violence for them; emphasis, militias!

A by-election in Accra turned bloody after armed men stormed the opposition candidate’s residence 

Nearing two months after the President, Nana Akufo-Addo directed the two parties to start the disbanding talks, they are still arguing over the modalities of the talks, I bet it’d be easier to get Hitler and Roosevelt in the same room.

As 2020 nears, I sincerely hope the members of these militias and their sponsors would learn from others’ mistakes; all the warning signs are there, it couldn’t be said any better.

Kagame, who was the leader of one of the factions during the Rwandan war is alive today and President of the country. 500,000 people are however dead, from both the Hutus and Tutsis, although the Tutsis are more because they suffered the massacre.

We may think this is Ghana and we are peaceful people but so was the thinking of the cat.

Da Yie!

The views expressed in this article are the personal opinions of the writer, Oswald Azumah, and do not in any way or form represent those of Myjoyonline.com or the entire Multimedia Group where he is attached.