Professor Kwame Karikari’s condemnation of the BNI for interrogating Prince Prah, Editor of the Daybreak newspaper, over a publication that was considered as being “of national security interest” must not be allowed to fade without comment. The subject-matter of that publication should alarm every reasonable Ghanaian because of its import; and Professor Karikari’s denigration of the BNI must not be countenanced, for that matter. He seemed to have acted rashly and must be told the truth.
If, indeed, we claim to be interested in progress and national stability, then, we must be responsible in our utterances, public postures, and physical actions. We must place our national interests above partisan political, personal, or ethnic considerations to ensure that our conduct provides useful input for national advancement. The BNI may be guilty of excesses in some cases but in this matter concerning Prah, it cannot and must not be thrown away with the bath water.
I don’t think that occupying a particular niche in the body politic is an opportunity to pit one’s strength against that of the Establishment for petty political purposes as, unfortunately, seems to be the norm in our contemporary situation in Ghana. It seems some people are more interested in doing overtime to draw attention to themselves as dare-devils just for its own sake. Ghana doesn’t need such petulant characters.
The Daybreak newspaper’s publication said President Mills had asked the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), Lieutenant General Peter Augustine Blay, to proceed on leave, ostensibly as a prelude to sacking him. Another part of the publication said that Lt. Gen Blay was going to be replaced by Lt. Gen. Carl Mordey of the Ghana Revenue Authority. Then, the publication catalogued ranking in the Armed Forces to create the impression that Lt. Gen. Mordey was being uplifted above his senior officers just because he was an Ewe and in the good books of the government.
I am dumbfounded that those who are criticizing the BNI’s action don’t realize the danger that such irresponsible behaviour on Prah’s part entails. Indeed, the publication has nothing to its credit as a “news” item because it doesn’t qualify as such. It is a concocted humbug meant to not only do anti-NDC politics but also to incite the military against the government. I took the trouble to read carefully that publication and will be prepared to stick my neck out to say that apart from its being dangerously speculative, it is also a sad reflection on the extent to which some people can carry their mischief.
Will President Mills ask the CDS to proceed on leave without informing him or the Military hierarchy or Ghanaians but leave the “secret information” available to only Prince Prah of the Daybreak newspaper? What bunkum that anybody should expect the security and national intelligence service to gloss over?
A careful appraisal of the import of that publication reveals that it is calculated at portraying the government as irresponsible and tampering with the regimented structure of the Ghana Armed Forces. This kind of manipulation (as portrayed by the Daybreak’s publication) has every element of a destabilizing capacity and must be condemned outright, not condoned as Prof. Karikari’s impetuous reaction to the BNI’s action suggests. Anybody who has questions to answer over his conduct must be questioned without any undue misreading being done into the circumstances by those who should know better.
What this Prince Prah set out to do was to create enmity for the government. He sought to create the dangerous impression in the minds of the Military that the government placed ethnic sentiments above professional qualifications and performances in the promotion and appointment of Military Officers to positions in the Military. Indeed, it is saddening to note that such a publication has come from someone who calls himself a journalist and is expected to publish news items that are authentic (because they happened and can be substantiated). Any newsworthy event must have credibility, right?
In this publication, what is it that authenticates Prah’s speculation? The government has speedily responded to clarify its stance and that must be seen as an expression of enough concern and the appropriate state security and national intelligence institutions tasked to investigate the contents of that publication to establish the truth or otherwise of those claims.
Indeed, that’s exactly one of the tasks that fall within the purview of the BNI. So, what is wrong with inviting the Editor and questioning him about the publication? If no one questions him, how will we know the truth to be able to act on it? Or how will the government shape itself up to assess the impact of anything of the sort if its own security and national intelligence bodies don’t dig into such frightening publications to set minds at ease thereby?
We must not allow the so-called freedom of speech that we think we have to beguile us into doing the wrong thing. Freedom of speech and responsible behaviour are two sides of one coin. Unfortunately, however, those who defend wrongdoers like this Prince Prah choose to see only the side that projects freedom of speech. They neglect the side that deals with responsibilities and obligations, which is pathetic.
Journalists pride themselves on being considered as the “Fourth Estate of the Realm” but forget that such an accolade demands responsible behaviour. It calls for the kind of conduct that will yield the input needed by the three arms of government (the Executive, Legislative, and Judiciary) to provide good governance. By failing to behave responsibly, our journalists lose credit and become part of those who constitute problems to be solved by the society.
It’s a sad reflection on the state of affairs in our society, which has become unnecessarily over-charged with partisan political sentiments. This kind of situation has the potential to plunge the country into chaos if we allow so-called journalists to do things anyhow. We have every justification to prevent such an explosion and must call to order anybody whose conduct comes across as reprehensible.
Considering the problems rocking the Arab World, one wonders how much work their security and intelligence services did to apprise their governments of the trouble brewing in the system. We can tell from hindsight that they failed to pick on leads to know the depth of discontent among the populace; hence, their inability to inform their governments of the trouble brewing underneath them until the moment of doom dawned to unnerve them all. The unstoppable spate of uprisings is a clear manifestation of such laxity.
In all these instances, the security and national intelligence institutions might not have been proactive enough to alert their governments of the problems and got caught up in the mess themselves. The destabilization that we have seen in these countries might have been prevented had something been investigated and action taken when it really mattered to improve governance and stem the uprisings.
In our case, it’s good to allow the appropriate institutions to pick up every lead (whether significant or not) to investigate so that they can inform the authorities to take appropriate action to prevent the rocking of the boat of state. That’s why we should be careful the extent to which we drag our empty political manouevres and petty tendencies for mischief.
Personnel of institutions such as the BNI need our cooperation and goodwill to perform their legitimate duties so that the citizens can live in peace. In seeking to enjoy our so-called democratic rights and freedom(s), we must be careful not to set those institutions up as enemies to destroy. They were established within clear legal frameworks and invested with legitimate powers for good reasons and have played their part in sustaining national peace and stability. They deserve our cooperation and we must be forthcoming with it instead of turning everything surrounding them into a bone of contention.
Such institutions cannot function effectively without public support; but if we go all out to lock horns with them and present them as public enemies, we will be digging our own graves, especially if they slacken in reaction to the constant nagging and castigation. Those institutions have been in existence for ages and will continue to outlive their critics for as long as they serve the national interest. No government can do without any of those institutions because they are an integral part of governance. That’s why we must respect and cooperate with them instead of constantly denigrating them just because of petty partisan political considerations.
The problem with us is that we cannot rein in our overzealousness. We always politicize everything and behave as such to the detriment of good sense and judgement.
Is it not bewildering that the very institutions that have been set up and funded to supervise and control the conduct of journalists have been weakened by petty partisan political interests? Take, for instance, the National Media Commission and all the confusion that we have in the media houses (GBC, GNA, Graphic Corporation, etc.) just because the Commission is hamstrung by petty politics such that it can’t act dispassionately to instill discipline in journalism practice in Ghana. Again, consider the Ghana Journalists Association and how its leaders have over the years dined, wined, and wenched with politicians of divers political persuasions whose interests they stoutly defend, even against the grain.
What we have today to contend with is the result of the politicization of such institutions to such an extent that they can’t function effectively as expected. Thus, the NMC and GJA seem not to know how to enforce the code of ethics or discipline to ensure that journalists don’t step out of line to do what will push them into a collision course with the security and national intelligence bodies. The main issue is even not about censorship or penalizing journalists who fall foul of the professional standards of the field. It is about lack of enforceable professional standards.
I remember very well the main problem that the GJA struggled over in the 1980s, which was how to determine qualification for membership of the Association on the basis of who qualified as a journalist, in the first place. The definition of a “journalist” was a major issue that drove the GJA to a crisis point, especially when broadcasters at the GBC (who didn’t have any formal training in journalism) insisted that they were also journalists and must be regarded as such and enrolled into the GJA. Thus, if anybody who has access to a news medium claims to be a journalist, who can do anything to restrain such a person from carrying on as such. Ghana today has all manner of “journalists” of whom pioneer journalists like Jones Quartey-Papafio will be ashamed?
I am no admirer of so-called journalists who abuse their calling to serve parochial interests by doing the hatchet work for those who “hire” them. Nor do I regard as worth anybody’s bother a journalist who “obeys-the-wind” for petty pottage. Who will be proud of journalists in this situation as reported today:
“Ms Jawol Vera Magan, Programmes Officer of Youth Empowerment for Life (YEfL), a non-governmental organization, has accused a group of journalists in the Northern Region of unprofessional conduct when they left behind their notebooks and jotters at an event ground. She said the seven journalists displayed the unprofessional conduct in protest at the amount of money offered them by YEfL as “soli” after the event” (MyJoyOnline.com)?”
Indeed, in our case, we have allowed mediocrity to take the better side of our journalism practice. That’s why we can’t separate the goats from the sheep. But to make any meaningful progress, we must do all we can to let the goats know what they are and keep their distance away from the sheep. Not until we do so, the journalism waters will remain muddy—and will be further muddied by people of Prince Prah’s type whose overzealousness to cause mischief will definitely lead them astray to salute the security services. And those who support them will only come across as intelligent people who have unfortunately failed to err on the side of good sense and judgement.
E-mail: mjbokor@yahoo.com