Kennedy Agyepong vs Afia Schwarzenegger
I am not young, and I have been a friend of radio for a long time. Never in all my many years on earth have I heard four-letter crude obscenities poured out so liberally and with such unbridled abandon on radio.
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No, I have not been everywhere, but I don’t know of any country in all of God’s world where there is so much democracy that anybody, no matter how powerful or popular, would walk around a free man or woman after releasing those loathsome four-letter expletives with which Kennedy Agyepong and Afia Schwarzenegger subjected the ears of the citizens of Ghana to.
I can assure those who have not yet had the misfortune of being aurally accosted by the banter between the two “celebrities” that they are not words any self-respecting person can repeat. Growing up, we realised that they were the words whose utterance would compel scandalised hearers to quickly move to cover the mouth of the speaker. It did not matter that they were uttered in anger or frustration. The utterer immediately attracted public scorn for shameful conduct.
For the records, Kennedy Agyepong is the MP for Assin Central. The woman is the host of Okay FM’s mid-morning show, ‘Ye Wo Krom’. This article was originally conceived as a petition to the Speaker of Parliament, but my attention was, early in the week, drawn to a statement which has, thus far, not been denied by Parliament, that by the rules of the Parliament of the Fourth Republic of Ghana, Kennedy Agyepong cannot be invited by the august House to answer for his conduct, let alone think of possible sanctions. It is up to ordinary Ghanaians to petition the Speaker for redress.
My memory fails me, I suspect, but did Parliament need petitions by ordinary citizens of the land to drag before its Privileges Committee that Pharmacy Professor (remember the vaccine trials palava?) and the radio presenter who claimed on air last year that the majority of MPs were on drugs?
Granted , for the sake of legal correctness, that Parliament acts only on petitions, what happened to the petition presented on the issue to the Minority Leader, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu by that NPP youth advocacy group which requested the removal of the Assin Central MP from the position of a Ranking Member for Communication? What more will it take to make Parliament feel scandalised enough to act?
Sometime last year, I asked, and I repeat the question: Is there nothing in our Constitution or the code of Parliamentary ethics that can be invoked to ban this man from offering himself for public office?
To the New Patriotic Party I ask: Did the petition of the youth group presented to Mr Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu fall on deaf ears? Have the moral majority in the party who sanctioned Messrs Kwabena Agyepong and Paul Afoko not been scandalised enough to act to save the party from the bewilderment of floating voters?
The most commendable act of public relations in the whole sordid affair is the reaction of the management of Okay FM. They have suspended the programme. Even if it eventually gets restored, this singular act by the Despite Group has demonstrated the ownership’s abhorrence at their staff member’s conduct.
I am personally happy that a stable that attracts the endorsements of such respectable icons of good public conduct as Professor Opanyin Agyekum, Kwesi Pratt and, Kweku Baako, and which boasts such top brass presenters as Kwame Sefa Kayi and Maa Efia, has acted. Osei Kwame Despite has shown that notoriety is not a synonym of fame; that he desires popularity for his stations, but not at all cost. This is leadership.
I am waiting to hear from the New Patriotic Party. It is a leadership issue and the party cannot forever be silent, in the hope that it will blow over.
To the woman in question, I wanted to quote Article 164 of the Constitution that subjects the provisions of Articles 162 and 163 (on media freedoms) to laws “That are reasonably required in the interest of national security, public order, public morality…” but I was reminded that not everybody who comes on air is necessarily a journalist or belongs to the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA).
What does Ghana do with the likes of this woman and this MP? Are we so helpless?
Talking about our helplessness as a people, did anyone see the images on television that came from the troubled Tafo township in the Ashanti Region? Did you see the deadly iron chain being brandished by that giant-like, towering, macho? What about the one with the cutlass? And the one who was addressing a sizeable group of young people with words that admitted of no other interpretation than an incitement to riot?
Armed police were looking on – helpless, like the unarmed civilians - as car tyres were being burnt and the law dragged on the ground with naked impunity. But that is not what worries me most. My worry is that Ghana is, over the past few months or one year, witnessing too many acts of incitement.
I am still fighting off this nagging premonition that is refusing to go away.