Ghana safer with Montie 3 behind bars – Security Analyst

A Security Analyst, Adib Saani has said that Ghana's security will improve with the incarceration of the Montie trio.

Reacting to the court ruling that saw the Supreme Court hand a four-month prison sentence to the Host of the 'Pampaso' political show on Accra-based Montie FM, Salifu Maase, alias Mugabe, and the two panelists, Alistair Nelson, and Godwin Ako Gunn, for threatening to kill judges of the Supreme Court during a radio discussion, he noted that the sentence will effectively deal with the culture of impunity affecting the Ghanaian society, hence improve our security in the run up to the December election.

Saani indicated that it should be a matter of an urgent national security to check the trend because unsavory and reckless remarks have the potential of causing chaos during this year's election if unchecked.

He added that, such remarks create an atmosphere of fear and hate like it happened in Rwanda, Kenya and Ivory Coast. He quoted Malcolm x as saying that “The media’s the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that’s power. Because they control the minds of the masses.”

Saani described radio stations such as Montie and other radio stations as treading the same path as Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines (RTLMC), which stoked the 1994 Rwandan genocide that resulted in the deaths of nearly a million Tutsis and moderate Hutus.

“In the end, according to estimates in a study by a Harvard University Researcher, 9.9% of the participation in the genocidal violence was due to the broadcasts. The estimate of the study suggests that approximately 51,000 deaths were caused by the station’s broadcasts” Saani noted.

Saani cited the Media Foundation for West Africa's (MFWA) report which showed that since the beginning of a campaign dubbed Language Monitoring Project this year Montie FM has recorded a total of 40 incidents of indecent expressions, the highest among all the stations being monitored.

In its findings for the period April 18-30, 2016, the report identified one Mugabe Massie, host of Montie FM's Pampaso programme to have made a remark endorsing violence on the April 29, 2016 edition of the programme while discussing an alleged bussing of people to Dome Kwabenya. In the same report, it identified 22 cases of unsavory remarks on Montie FM and 15 on Oman FM.

He also bemoaned the practice where people besiege court premises to support wrongdoers, describing their actions as unpatriotic and not good for Ghana's democracy.

“It beats my imagination to see some Ghanaians invading court premises, chant war songs and attack journalists in the name of supporting their own, when these guys have pleaded guilty, meaning they accept that they indeed did wrong”, Saani lamented.

Saani blamed it on the politicization of almost all national issues that has invariably polarized the country.

He called on key stakeholders to asses issues of national interest from a neutral perspective, rather than with political lenses because it has nothing to do with NDC or NPP, but our democracy.

Saani also called for the amendment of the laws to criminalize hate speech in the country, saying “security agencies would have to engender the trust of the people by carrying out their duties without fear or favor and should act and be seen as neutral players. Ghana deserves better and we can't afford to compromise our peace and security before, during and after the election. The world is looking to us, he said. Owners of media organizations should also employ professionals rather foot soldiers.”

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By: Marian Ansah/citifmonline.com/Ghana