Tape-Recording Of Hon. Yaw Osafo Marfo's Voice Must Be Sent For Forensic Audio Analysis

It is not surprising that controversy has erupted over the tribalistic sentiments allegedly expressed by the Hon. Yaw Osafo Marfo, which were secretly recorded during a meeting he held with elders of his party, in the Eastern Region.

The authenticity of the tape-recording must be quickly established to enable the controversy to end.

If it is found to have been doctored, those behind it must be found and prosecuted for slandering the Hon. Yaw Osafo Marfo, and ruining his hard-earned reputation.

On the other hand, the Hon. Yaw Osafo Marfo's career as a politician must end, if any forensic audio analysis carried out by reputable experts confirmed that the tape-recording had not been doctored - meaning therefore that  he actually made  those totally unacceptable  tribalistic comments.

In the face of the denials by the Hon. Yaw Osafo Marfo and his spokesperson, they have a moral obligation to tell Ghanaians what exactly Yaw Osafo Marfo said on that particular occassion.

Nothing else will do - and the New Patriotic Party's (NPP) presidential candidate for the 2016 election,  Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo,  must ensure that that is done immediately.

This is a particularly nasty poison and sure-fire-election-loser that will not be neutralised by dissimulation and clever PR.

What fair-minded person who is a patriot and nationalist wants to be ruled by narrow-minded and tribalistic politicians - who claim to be champions of democracy, yet feel that ruling Ghana is their birthright? Hypocritical politicians with such an antediluvian mentality will stop at nothing in order to win power - which can never be good for any democracy.

That is why Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo must publicly condemn those unacceptable and divisive views - and assure Ghanaians that he is a one-nation politician whose regime will not discriminate against any section of society or region in Ghana.

For the sake of our country, it is important that members of Ghana's political class immediately own up, when they are exposed by secretly recorded voice recordings of controversial statements made by them, in private conversations, which  they would otherwise wish had never been put into the public domain.

It is vital that political parties in Ghana never shield leading members who are exposed by such secretly recorded private conversations - as it is not helpful to give the world the impression that a political party is hastily erecting a wall-of-deception to hide an unpallatable truth about one of its leaders from the world.

It would say a lot about the integrity of the Hon. Yaw Osafo Marfo, if claims by his spokesperson that the recording of him making those controversial statements had been doctored, were to be scientifically proven to be pure lies told to try and distance Yaw Osafo Marfo from what he actually said.

The question we should pose to Ghanaian politicians is: If there are reputable forensic laboratories around the world that specialise in analysing audio voice recordings to ascertain whether or not they have been doctored, why bury your head in the sand, when it can be scientifically proven that your denials and claims that the recording had been doctored are nothing but pure lies?

Indeed, so serious are the tribalistic sentiments allegedly expressed by the Hon. Yaw Osafo Marfo, in the secretly recorded tape-recording of his voice that its authenticity ought to be established as soon as practicable. We must condemn such dangerous and atavistic views in no uncertain terms.

No politician or political party holding such divisive views ought to rule our country.

We must not forget that it could be argued that if it can be established that a majority of the leading members of any political party in Ghana, are in fact tribal-supremacists, that party could be banned from participating in elections in our country - and its certificate of registration cancelled and withdrawn.

The more responsible sections of the Ghanaian media, which actually care about the stability of our nation, and the welfare of ordinary people - and thus remain strictly neutral observers of the Ghanaian political landscape - ought to submit the voice recording that the Hon. Yaw Osafo-Marfo's spokesperson claims has been doctored, to a reputable forensic laboratory outside Ghana, for analysis to ascertain its authenticity.

In addition to sundry police forensic laboratories across the world,  as this blog's humble contribution to that important national assignment, we  recommend Gregg M. Stutchman's Stutchman Forensic Laboratory, in California, USA, to the Ghanaian media.