Time of change from the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government, led by John Agyekum Kufuor , to the National Democratic Congress (NDC) government led by John Evans Atta Mills, might have, indeed, faded, altered and completely displaced and consigned Kwaku Baako’s style of journalistic exploit in Ghanaian politics – of extreme and blind jingoism; most of the times, journalistic politics of dishonesty and blackmail: in fact, total lies, protruding from unfounded testimonies, churned out embarrassingly, at public places of discerning opinion; in to the dustbin of history.
The Managing Editor of the New Crusading Guide could have been trusted by people, including his paymasters, who might not deem it fit to cross-check veracity of whatever belligerent hot-air Mr. Baako might have been churning out, parochially, but at detriment of the larger suffering populace under Kufuor administration, who were asked by the then president to ‘bite the bullet’ while his administration busied itself sharing and stashing public fund in their private bank accounts and buying hotels.
How many times didn’t Kwaku Baako flick and perch and chirp of having documents indicting sensible and reasonable senior citizens of Ghana, who were, not-so-surprisingly, New Patriotic Party leaders and members, but failed at all the times to make such documents public?
It is believed that when a man realizes and change faith, it comes with self-realization and repentance. So when Kweku Baako became an Abdul Malik Kwaku Baako by faith, and his newspaper also changing from Crusading Guide to the New Crusading Guide by default, many were those who believe the old political-journalist fraud, may have seen the light, and could shed with it the leopard skin he wears as journalistic gear.
It wasn’t secret that journalists in Baako’s character were supplied monthly allocation of rice and oil and in fact, other largesse that makes the guard-dogs lose their watch-dog brains to their corrupt political comrades-in-crime.
The media, apart from being the fourth estate of realm of governance, and a watch-dog over, often shady politicians’ wits, was also noted, rightly so, for setting of national agenda and shaping of public opinion.
But this is where journalists like Kweku Baako slip and fall, and could have no better place in era of good governance that benefits the people, in term of development, than personal gains of it members.
Kwaku Baako was said to have vowed to pull the Atta Mills’s government down: That’s if a threat, might have be coming from a spineless creature who would fail to stand straight at a fight, for lack of both strength and stamina.
But if the usual ugly noise comes from a child’s play; why not? Children like Baako have toy guns all over the place; more so, at this time of Christmas knocking at doors of sensibly reasoning Ghanaians.
Inasmuch that Ghanaians have had enough of balderdash of a frustrated self-style and misplaced senior journalist, who could have helped the nation better, the least, they expect from Mr. Baako, at the political juncture of realization of electoral mistakes, would be to listening and taking seriously, the like of Mr. Abdul Malik Kweku Baako and his New Crusading Guide newspaper.
At a serious business-place like Ghana today, as far as forward march in economic development is concerned, KweKu ‘Ananse’ Baakos’ style of retrogressive journalism and social commentaries were less needed; or at all. It could be taken for comic relief, though, but who has a time on such trash?
