COMMENT: Fashioning building blocks for tomorrow's tyranny, today

By Kofi Thompson

Since the advent of constitutional rule in 1992, there have always been dark forces at work seeking to stop Ghana from becoming a truly liberal society.

A prime target of those dark forces is the Ghanaian media - which they now seek control over, not through fear, but by literally buying individual journalists and media houses.

Unfortunately for our nation, those who would rather the Ghanaian media was under their control, have found unwitting allies - the many good and decent members of our educated urban elites, whose reflex reaction to excesses by journalists, is to call for legislation to give yet more powers to state institutions such as the National Media Commission (NMC).

What escapes many such individuals, is that although those who constitute today's NMC might be committed to protecting constitutional democracy in Ghana, it is possible that a future NMC might be made up of individuals happy to aid a government subtly seeking to limit freedom of expression in Ghana - and actively doing so by stealth: using public dismay at excesses by journalists and media houses at a particular point in time, as a cloak for railroading legislation through Parliament muzzling the Ghanaian media, under the guise of preventing excesses by the media.

As our nation becomes ever more polarised politically, one finds that for reasons of political expediency, many good and decent men and women are unwittingly allying themselves to those dark forces that would rather society's fiercest watchdogs in the fourth branch of government became toothless and sleepy bulldogs.

How can we fight corruption in our state institutions and wrong-doing by the powerful in society, if an unintended consequence of legislation passed by Parliament to control excesses by journalists and media houses, meant in practice, for example, that corrupt public officials could neither be questioned nor named and shamed by investigative broadcast journalists - because they had sought to hide behind the skirt of the NMC of the day: which somehow had the power to stop the media from publishing the results of such investigations?

Yes, let us by all means give those who work at the NMC more pay; more air-conditoners; more luxury cross-country vehicles; and more of whatever else they crave, but for heaven's sake let us not give any state institution the power to interfere in the work of journalists.

In a corrupt society such as ours, the likelihood of institutions such as Parliament and the NMC being manipulated to hound those in the media who expose wrong-doing by the powerful, must never be discounted.

It is said that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. Far better to put up with the excesses of the few bad nuts in the media, than give the powerful in society the means to control the media via state institutions like the NMC and Parliament.

The law courts are always there for those who feel libelled or slandered unjustly by the media, to seek justice from.

We will never be a society that constantly produces innovative ideas if we do not allow Ghana to become a truly liberal society.

A free press is a sine qua non for a free and progressive society - by providing the platform for an interchange of ideas that brings the best ideas to the fore: to propel the society forward.

Let us not encourage those who seek to control the media in any shape or form - no matter how benign their stated objectives might appear to be.

Let us not forget that this a nation in which anonymous wealthy donors always step forward to pay their own money to save face for blundering governments embarrassed by negative publicity for either attempting to lavish hapless taxpayers' money on renovating the private residences of our leaders, or sponsoring pastors to travel to Israel to pray for Mother Ghana.

Should the media not be free to question the motives of such anonymous do-gooders - and the sources of their wealth: and demand to know what the quid pro quo is, if any?

To those in a hurry to see passage of new laws to interfere with the work of the media, one's humble advice is: Let us not hurry to fashion the building blocks for tomorrow's tyranny, today. A word to the wise...

Email: peakofi.thompson@gmail.com.