Executive Director of the Media Foundation for West Africa, Prof. Kwame Karikari, has accused the two main political parties in Ghana of constantly fueling “irresponsible animosity”.
He says the posture of the two parties in relation to the use of hate speech and acerbic language by their supporters betrays them as tacitly encouraging and acquiescing to such foulness on the media airwaves.
Prof. Karikari says the two parties must start publicly naming and shaming their supporters who fall foul of using irresponsible language in the media as a way of demonstrating their abhorrence against such language.
Speaking at a forum on the law of contempt organised by research think-tank Centre for Democratic Development in Accra on Tuesday July 9, 2013, the former Director General of state broadcaster GBC said the “NDC and the NPP and their leaders consistently appear to be encouraging the use of the media to foment animosity and needless polarisation” in society.
According to him, although speech, by itself, does not lead to violent acts, it is imperative that the security agencies ensure that: “neither the NDC nor the NPP backs the irresponsible utterances of their leaders and foot soldiers with organised force to put into action, those rather divisive and destructive expressions”.
He proposed that the leaders of the two political parties must “rethink their attitude to media use by their members and the public utterances of their followers”.
“I think that the political leaders, from particularly, these two parties, must henceforth, publicly reprimand members who insult the public’s intelligence by reckless and irresponsible expressions”, Prof. Karikari suggested.
