Nothing can justify a worrying development that is clearly going to end up closing a number of radio and television stations in Ghana.
Although most discerning people in Ghana rightly tend to be skeptical and wary of conspiracy theories and those who bandy them about, as a people, we must always analyse what conspiracy theorists say - in case they contain a gem of truth that might redound to the benefit of Ghanaian society in the long-term if the warnings they contain are heeded by ordinary people.
That is why fair-minded and independent-minded Ghanaians must never rule out the possibility that there are indeed unseen hands at work in the Ghana of today trying to lay the foundation for a future tyranny-of-the-majority to enable their long-held secret agenda of dominating our nation till the very end of time to come to fruition.
For all we know this particular conspiracy theory might be complete nonsense. Furtheremore, it ought to be pointed out that if any such secret agenda actually exists, it is not ascribed to by President Akufo-Addo - whose committment to constitutional democracy in Ghana is total.
However, we must never rule out the possibility that there are indeed individuals and cabals of faceless individuals operating from the shadows, today, doing all they can to ensure that their mad dream of dominating our country becomes a reality. The question is: How do we know that control of the Ghanaian media landscape does not also feature prominently in that hellish secret agenda to enslave us all?
Whatever be the case, there is one thing that is not negotiable in our homeland Ghana: No one in our country has the power to stop ordinary people from listening to and contributing to aired programmes by radio and television stations across Ghana. Full stop.
In light of that implied right that is so clearly in sync with the spirit of the 1992 Constitution, it matters not a whit what the legal framework used by the present members of the National Communications Authority (NCA) in Ghana says, it is always preferable that we have a situation in which no one can lawfully shut down any radio or television station (or any other media entitiy in Ghana for that matter) under any circumstances.
So let all Ghanaians who want our nation to remain a free society fight for that desirable end.
In that regard, those who work in the radio and television stations sanctioned recently by the NCA must go to court immediately and obtain permission to carry on broadcasting whiles their lawyers seek the Supreme Court's interpretation of the constitutional edict that in our free Ghanaian society media entities do not require licenses to operate. As media professionals we must always fight such perfidy.
After all, the NCA - virtually all of whose discussions about such important matters are secret - does not own radio frequencies in Ghana. They only manage them on behalf of Ghanaians. Ultimately, it is the people of Ghana, in whom sovereignty lies, who own radio frequencies in this country - not the sodden NCA.
The NCA should not therefore hide behind the regulatory legal framework to deny listeners of the radio and television stations it is trying to use roundabout and Machiavellian means to shutdown, from listening to their favourite radio and television stations, under any any circumstances. Period.
We must never allow the culture of silence to return to this country again under the guise of enforcement of NCA rules and regulations - when the plain truth is that some arrogant people amongst our vampire-elites have an agenda to dominate our nation by stealth: and consequently want to control the media landscape in furtherance of that foolish secret agenda of theirs. This is 2017 - not the 1950s. Haaba.
Given a choice between no government and a free media landscape, in light of our chequered history, Ghanaians must always choose a free and plural media rather than tolerate a thieving and greedy and mostly incompetent ruling elite trying to control media entities by stealth, under the cloak of enforcing rules and regulations designed after all by a clever former military dictatorship to enable them control the media in a new democratic era that was forced on them - we must never forget. Haaba.
For the benefit of our younger generation Ghanaian readers we have culled and posted an interesting piece from the website of Libertyfund.org on the famous words of U.S. President Thomas Jefferson, about the importance of having a free and plural media to serve as a platform and guarantor of freedom of expression.
Finally, we must never allow regulatory bodies to kill media enties in our nation by stealth under many circumstances - for despite their many shortcomings media enties do actually protect our freedoms in Ghana.
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Jefferson’s preference for “newspapers without government” over “government without newspapers” (1787)
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From: The Works, vol. 5 (Correspondence 1786-1789) (Thomas Jefferson)
By: Thomas Jefferson
Theme: Freedom of Speech
See this quote in context.
Jefferson writes from Paris to Edward Carrington, whom Jefferson sent as a delegate to the Continental Congress from 1786 to 1788, on the importance of a free press to keep government in check. He concludes that if he had to choose between “a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter”:
The people are the only censors of their governors: and even their errors will tend to keep these to the true principles of their institution. To punish these errors too severely would be to suppress the only safeguard of the public liberty. The way to prevent these irregular interpositions of the people is to give them full information of their affairs thro’ the channel of the public papers, & to contrive that those papers should penetrate the whole mass of the people. The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. But I should mean that every man should receive those papers & be capable of reading them.
About this Quotation:
Jefferson constantly surprises the reader with his radical insights into the nature of government and his remedies to correct its abuses. In this letter written from Paris while he was Minister to France to Edward Carrington, whom he had appointed to represent the state of Virginia at the Continental Congress he makes two such insights: the first is the topic of the quotation, namely that he thinks the role of a free press in keeping government power in check is so important that he would prefer “newspapers without government” to “government without newspapers; the second is his statement about the nature of European governments (remember he is writing on the eve of the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789), that they have divided the nation into two contending classes where the government were like wolves who devoured the wealth of the people, who were like sheep. Jefferson warns Carrington that all governments, even the new American government of which they themselves were members, unless checked by a knowledgeable citizenry, would inevitably become wolves.
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End of culled piece from the Libertyfund.org website.
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