Governance Lecturer at the Central University, Dr. Benjamin Otchere-Ankrah has rebuked the journalists and youth of today who have resorted to the use of invectives in addressing national issues or responding to matters relating to the behaviour of the leaders in the country.
Recently, the Police Service have turned their security antenna on media practitioners and persons who vituperate entities or other people.
An Accra FM's Presenter, Kwabena Bobie Ansah days ago landed himself in trouble after alleging that the First and Second Ladies, Rebecca Akufo-Addo and Samira Bawumia have stolen State lands.
He was arrested and charged with offensive conduct.
The Police also arrested the leader of the #FixTheCountry demo, Oliver Barker-Vormawor after the latter's comments on social media about plotting a coup and is also charged with treason felony.
NPP Bono Regional Chairman, Kwame Baffoe, popularly called 'Abronye DC', was also not spared as the Police apprehended him over his claims that former President John Mahama is involved in a coup plot.
He has been charged him with two counts of publication of false news and offensive conduct conducive to the breach of peace.
Speaking on Peace FM's ''Kokrokoo'', Dr. Benjamin Otchere-Ankrah was alarmed by the depravation that has characterized today's generation to the extent that they boldly utter disparaging remarks against people who could pass to be their elders.
He wondered how a young person could insult the President with alacrity, and believed ''some children and youth of today have mouth diarrhoea. Some of them have their mouths leaking...The question is how many people will ever get the opportunity to become President in this country?....When you listen to some radio stations and how they are derogating [President] Nana Addo or President Mahama, you ask yourself do these people have elders in their homes?''
He advised the populace to ''watch our tongues. Someone once said freedom of speech I can guarantee but freedom after speech, I may not be, so it's not everything that must come out of your mouth''.
He also charged the elderly people in the society to take up the challenge of guiding the youth to become responsible and measured in their utterances.
Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana
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Any Ghanaian who blindly supports the NDC has obviously been misled into believing in the NDC. If you listen to certain NDC-MPS, you will understand where I'm coming from with this assertion that something intelligent hardly comes from the NDC. Then, what is the ideological position of the NDC with respect to engaging and ensuring the public their policies which they intend to implement when voted into power to improve their livelihood? Apart from fabricating lies for propagandistic purposes, the NDC essentially has nothing to offer. Certain academics, journalists, and outspoken Ghanaian personalities appear to have been paid to say what they say-to the extent that you doubt if they are abreast with the reality on the ground in Ghana. I'm not saying all is well in Ghana, but constructive criticism is equally progressive. It’s rather unfortunate that an intellectual would subdue his hard-earned intellect to cheap peanuts for self-seeking and incompetent politicians to chew. Threatening a coup for political power comes out of frustration in the political arena of the contest of ideas characterized by a principled ideological position. The NDC, hitherto, has not been able to present a tradition backed by a convincing political ideology. As social democrats, as they claim to be, is belied by their inability to implement social intervention programs. In contrast, the numerous social programs are implemented by the NPP-administrations, which tout their belief in a property-owning democracy. Indeed, the NPP was in charge of all of the country's flagship social programs, such as FSHS, NHIS, and school feeding programs. This massive deficiency in the NDC's social responsibility cannot be resolved with sheer propaganda, coup-threats, and baseless political polemics. Therefore, the NDC is better advised to change its strategy.
Those journalists must be prosecuted and punished. Frankly, it is not journalism and freedom of speech. It is freedom to insults and attribute criminality to others unjustly and without evidence. If they claim that they are journalists then they are not doing their jobs properly or not practising journalism. These bad practices must be curbed.