MFWA condemns Mahama’s endorsement of Adongo’s ethnocentric comments

The Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) has condemned the ethnocentric comments made by the National Democratic Congress’ (NDC) Member of Parliament for Bolgatanga Central, Mr Isaac Adongo, in a Facebook post headlined: ‘Agyapa Royalties Fraud Is The Last Straw: The Akyem Sakawa Boys and Grandpas must Go’.

In the said post, Mr Adongo accused President Akufo-Addo of forming a family-and-friends cartel to capture the mineral resources of the state.

The Facebook post was later shared by the NDC’s flagbearer, Mr John Dramani Mahama, on 31 August 2020, evoking divergent sentiments among his followers.

The MFWA, in a statement, cautioned that such statements and comments have the tendency to provoke and incite reprisal attacks, which can fuel political tensions.

“Again, John Mahama’s action of sharing the article on his Facebook page amounts to republication and an endorsement of the ethnocentric comments which have already received 6,500 Likes; 2,900 Comment and 1,100 Shares as of September 8, 2020,” the statement said.

The MFWA said while it acknowledges that public discourse on both traditional and social media get heated during electioneering periods, “it is regrettable that often, such expressions are made with total disregard for the basic ethos of cultural and social values of public communication.”

With barely three months to the December 7 polls, the Foundation said political discourse in the media and public sphere has been characterised by the prevalence of indecent expressions.

Already, MFWA’s 2020 monitoring of language use on radio has cited a total of 156 indecent expressions made by radio show hosts, influential political party officials and affiliates.

The monitoring defined indecent expression as any statement or insinuation that seeks to attack or damage the reputation of an individual, political party or ethnic group; or that could provoke the target of the expression to react in an unpleasant or offensive manner or that could offend the sensibilities of members of the public.

These include insults, prejudice or bigotry, inflammatory expressions, hate speech, tribal slurs and stereotyping, provocative remarks unsubstantiated allegations and gender-specific insults among others.

MFWA is, therefore, urging all political party aspirants, candidates and political communicators to endeavour to focus on issues-based campaigning in order to ensure citizens are able to make their choices based on issues.

“Political parties, their communicators, assigns and serial callers must also desist from engaging in personal vendetta that satisfies their party ego and interests" and rather make commitments to ensure that the upcoming elections are peaceful.