<<Print>>Kobby Fiagbe, editor of Pro-NDC Newspaper, Ghanaian Lens, has lambasted the National Media Commission (NMC) for ordering him and four other editors to apologize for publishing alleged derogatory materials about Nana Akuffo-Addo.
According to him, the NMC erred in alleging that he is culpable because he failed to respond to their invitation or justify his publications.
The NMC directed the Daily Post, Ghanaian Lens, The Enquirer, Informer and Al-Hajj to render an apology to the NPP flagbearer following his complaint saying that the papers in question indeed made the unsubstantiated allegations against Mr. Akuffo Addo.
In an interview with Citi News the Ghanaian Lens editor insisted that the Media Commission rather owes him an apology since he had responded to their invitations and cooperated fully with them.
He said the “NMC has been totally unfair, [and] has peddled a total untruth about my person and my paper” adding that “they only have to do the honourable thing by rendering an apology to us and by stating the facts correctly to the Ghanaian people.”
He argued that, since Nana Addo filed the complaint, he has on three occasions followed up to the NMC to tell his side of the story.
“I personally went to the NMC on three occasions…and on two of those occasions I was with Kabral, and then subsequently I followed up with a letter from our paper stating our position on the matter,” he added.
A statement signed by Kabral Amihere, NMC Chairman said, on June 16, 2014, Nana Akufo-Addo filed a complaint with the Commission against publications in the said Newspapers.
The statement said in the letter signed by Nana Akufo-Addo’s lawyers, Godfred Yeboah Dame, the complainant stated that the “substance of the stories complained of, are in all essentials utterly false, a product of the imagination of the publishers of the newspapers.”
It said the NMC invited the newspapers to respond to the complaint against them and invited them to several meetings for a possible adjudication and settle of the complaint against them.