Returning to a passion

Since I was elected Chairman of the National Media Commission on November 30, 2018, and subsequent re-election on December 23, 2021, I have recused myself from openly offering my personal opinions on matters that have taken place in the country.

The only exception was when Parliament overstepped its limits and cajoled the Electoral Commission from laying the Legislative Instrument that was to make the Ghana Card the sole mandatory document for the registration of voters.

I came out to condemn the unlawful and unconstitutional act of Parliament for encroaching on the independence of the Electoral Commission.

That was because the illegality had consequential effect on the NMC which is also clothed with the mandate to prepare instruments for parliamentary approval to become law.

The path taken by Parliament on the instrument breached the clear and express provisions of Article 11(7) of the 1992 Constitution.

The article directs how such pieces of subordinate legislation are to be made.

Good decision

It was good I took the decision not to state my personal position on matters of national interest, especially those that excited controversy.

Indeed, when I was invited in my capacity to address a training programme of the Ghana Journalists Association on Peaceful Discourse and expressed my distaste for the call of the leadership of the association for the media to boycott or black out individuals who resort to impunity to undermine the practice of journalism, the GJA condemned it as a betrayal from the Chairman of the NMC.

They did not look at it from the perspective of a bona fide member of the association expressing a dissent. It was disingenuously presented as a matter between the GJA and the NMC, attracting malinformed comments.

But having now served my tenure as two-time Chairman of the NMC, I am now free to express my views on all national issues, especially having served on that independent Constitutional Body and acquired new insights into the operations of the media in the country.

It is even more obvious in an era where retired Supreme Court judges copiously exercise little caution in tearing decisions of their colleagues into shreds with others joining demonstrations.

I can now resume expressing my views on matters of public interest, particularly the bestial acts of invading collation centres to disrupt proceedings of the Electoral Commission and the encouragement of supporters to use unorthodoxy to get their preferred candidates declared as winners even when all the rules had not been followed nor total votes from all the polling centres counted.

Afterwards such coerced declarations, including those made under threats of death, those who organise the hoodlums argue that once those declarations have been made, irrespective of the deficiencies and lacking legitimacy, the results must be maintained and that those who disagree, including the Electoral Commission, must let them have their way or challenge the null results in court.

Such mischievous politicians and political actors must or ought to know that such fraudulent acts of impunity vitiate the outcomes and it is absurd to think of such illogical reasoning.

Such puerile arguments could be likened to a deviant boy who murders both parents and then when charged in court opens the defence by arguing that because they have become orphans they must be comforted.

But before I commit another unGhanaian trait, let me commend my Roommate President John Dramani Mahama for winning the 2024 Presidential election decisively and for taking office.

The last time he won in 2012, I was unable to congratulate him because of the controversy that surrounded the results and what transpired about Pink Sheets, at the Supreme Court. The decision of the Supreme Court itself fuelled the controversy.

For instance, the chairman of the panel, either inadvertently or mistakenly, placed one panel member in both the majority and minority decisions. 

Fraudulent acts

A panel member, in his decision, agreed that there were fraudulent acts which affected the votes but reasoned that the volumes were not sufficient to overturn the verdict without quoting any figures. However, the foundation of our presidential election is based on the winner securing more than half of all the votes cast in percentage terms.

John D, Room, you did a marvellous job this time and I congratulate you on that. I am not sure how the NDC will interpret my position this time since the last time some of them condemned me for not congratulating my roommate, but inviting him to the funeral of my late father then.

I must also congratulate the open-minded and humble Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, for the first time in the history of our country, on conceding defeat, when it became obvious. His was an act of nationalism where his priority was about sacrificing a political position to save lives.

Indeed, he helped to save us from paying with much bloodshed, when some hoodlums were deliberately mobilised to disrupt proceedings at the collation centres.

Maybe for some of our politicians who have sold their destiny to the devil,  they are happy and powerful only when blood is shed in an election, which is aimed at counting heads rather than cutting heads.

Now returning to the violence that undermined the transparent, open and peaceful exercise of voting, we must blame it on the late night press conferences of the National Democratic Congress and the New Patriotic Party.

Each of them claimed to have won the polls, when they all had access to the Pink Sheets, which they are now touting as cherished assets or arsenal to pursue their causes in court.

Even worse, the NDC encouraged its supporters to invade collation centres to defend their wins when the leaders knew too well that only the Pink Sheets could provide evidence of their success.

The NDC supporters were more than encouraged in the impunity, burning electoral materials, especially when the party chairman, Johnson Asiedu Nketiah, said the last time he appealed to them to be calm, the party was cheated and so they were to continue with their acts of vandalism if that was to enure to the party.

However, when the Electoral Commission did not declare the results after 24 hours, although they had projected to do so within 72 hours, the NDC was quick in blaming the Electoral Commission, by suggesting that the EC could rely on their copies of the Pink Sheets to declare the results.

It is equally important that we in the media do not allow ourselves to be misinformed and malinformed about what happened at the Supreme Court involving the mandamus applications that were quashed by the apex court.

What the Supreme Court said was that because the High Court refused to allow the NDC to present its cause, the matter must be returned to the High Court but under a different judge.

At no point did the Supreme Court say that the declarations described by the Electoral Commission as fraudulent, must be maintained.

Therefore, to suggest that the NDC has won those seats is disinformation.

It is also important to note that the Supreme Court, in its decision, decided to abridge the time for the deliberations on the mandamus application to Tuesday, December 31, 2024. Once that was settled, the EC could gazette the results.

It is thus false, misleading and disinformation for anyone to suggest that the MPs involved could not be sworn in on January 7, 2025.