This nonsense must indeed stop
Someone has noted that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting the results to be different.
For some time now, Rev. Dr Lawrence Tetteh has run a programme titled “The Nonsense Must Stop” and I find it appropriate to adopt his theme for my write-up about our insanity in continuing to do the things that we condemn under one political administration but applaud under another administration, depending on who is in power and who becomes the victim.
This is more pronounced and saturated with respect for human rights, particularly free expression.
I have previously written to condemn the situation where people in government and supporters of a ruling party have the audacity to order those outside government to cease commenting about happenings in the country, merely because when they were in government, they did not move the country forward.
Recently I listened to a discussion on Peace FM where "Master" Kwesi Prat Jnr and Nana Akomea were discussing the upsurge in arrests of citizens who express views that are considered unfavourable to government and I was convinced about the fact that we would never make progress when we continue to make references to the past before we proffer an opinion on present matters, while forgetting the saying that when things happen, we must remember that similar things have happened before.
If we want to make progress, we must not casually make references to the past for the wrong reasons but to learn lessons to move forward. In trying to offer my views on what some have described as the creeping menace of the return of culture of silence, I read the piece by Manasseh Azure about his condemnation of the free expression record of Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and fondness for President John Dramani Mahama, my Roommate, and how his admiration is turning into shame following recent arrests of people who criticise or disagree with or use threats, reckless and abusive words against the current government, predominantly members and supporters of the New Patriotic Party.
Culture
Those of us who have been in the Journalism profession for long will admit that none of the arrests which happened under Nana Akufo-Addo and are happening under President Mahama come close to the culture of silence, as postulated by the erudite Prof. Albert Adu Boahen in his well-researched, reasoned, fearless, intellectually stimulating, rational and well-articulated lecture, which elicited the ferocious, hawkish and violent sadistic response of "there will be fire, an inferno, a conflagration" from Gen. Arnold Quainoo, that put the fear of God into Ghanaians, under the PNDC.
That fear flowed and permeated into the Graphic Newsroom, where at the Editorial Conference, deciding whether the lecture or response should be the lead on the Front Page of the paper degenerated into confused arguments. Eventually, the impasse was resolved, not based on the news value or professional matter but upon direct voting instead and I fell in the lot of the Minority who had argued animatedly for the lecture to lead the page.
A concomitant was that in 1992, after an interview with a Professor of Law at the University of Ghana, he tried to dissuade the reporter from writing the story and as News Editor, I had to tell him that the story had been made up and we could do nothing about it. But the next morning, the same person who tried to kill the story called to thank Graphic for the publication.
His explanation was that his colleagues admonished him for granting the interview since he had been chased out of the country under a previous military regime for expressing a legal position that the government considered detrimental.
Free
I have always counselled for free but responsible speech. However, when the battle against responsible speech becomes selective, it makes it difficult to openly condemn irresponsible and reckless speech, no matter how treacherous, inflammatory, abusive or threatening beyond limits.
Personally, I have spoken to people who matter across the political divide as to why they encourage such irresponsible individuals, who belong to their camps, to do what they do and escape liability.
I have questioned why Abronye, for instance, should ever follow Dr Mahamudu Bawumia on his campaign trail, since whatever goodwill would be consumed by his reckless comments.
I have equally questioned why a character like Kelvin Taylor was given state protection when he came to Ghana.
Sometimes I stop to ask myself, what is the difference between Abronye, Kelvin Taylor or and Sofo Tanko Computer, when they get the chance on radio or television to speak about their colleagues from a different political party.
It is under such circumstances that we squirm because evil must never be confined, because it has been directed at a supposed enemy instead of a competitor.
Captain Smart openly wished for the death of any traditional ruler who served on the Council of State and received a vehicle from the state.
In the middle of the discourse on the LGBTQUI+ debate, a group of respected and revered academics who dared to express their views against the law to criminalise the act were labelled as practitioners, nobody was arrested so when under the current administration some individuals were arrested for labelling functionaries of government as gays or lesbians, some of us gasped for breath for the recklessness, but the question was what had changed.
As Vice -President of the Ghana Journalists Association, I was the face of the GJA in the fight for the repeal of Criminal and Seditious libel laws.
I was part of the Coalition on the Right to Information and Broadcasting laws, but before then, due to the overwhelming misuse of state power to oust freedom of expression, we condoned irresponsible journalism and reckless speech for which we must take collective responsibility.
However, after a generation of living under the Fourth Republic, we all should be able to agree that the United Nations, through UNESCO, maintains that freedom must go with responsibility if free speech and freedom of the media should have meaning. UNESCO frames it thus: without freedom, no one can exact responsibility, whilst freedom without responsibility renders the freedom meaningless.
But when the enforcement of the responsible exercise becomes selective and partisan, it renders impotent insistence on the application of the law because that enables those with power to become more powerful, whilst those outside the circles of power become extremely vulnerable and subservient.
That is why if we cannot enforce the law with justice, then we should not apply it at all because, as Dr Martin Luther King Jr maintains, "an injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."
We must not look at the extremes of the speech, such as that of Abronye or the Muntie Three, to define the boundaries of responsible and reckless speech.
We can all agree on that but just as President John Agyekum Kufuor and President Prof. John Evans Atta Mills directed the police to release miscreants who baselessly insulted them because that did not amount to causing fear and panic, a phrase used as a ruse to arrest political opponents, we should be able to agree as a nation as to the kind of speech that amounts to recklessness not an expression of criticism or disagreement, whether baseless or informed, for as somebody has noted, all the progress that humanity has made have come out of criticism or disagreement no matter how chaotic or untrue.
But beyond politics, ethics, morality and culture, we need to reflect upon the restrictions on freedom of expression as provided for under Section 208 of the Criminal Offences Act 1960(Act 29) and Section 76 of the Electronic Communications Act 2008 (Act 775) to contain the selective abuse of power against free expression, including freedom of the media as guaranteed under Article 21(1) of the 1992 Constitution, which remains the Supreme law of Ghana.
