I watch the developments surrounding the setting up of a new, obviously partisan, NPP radio station called Asaase Radio and I ask myself if NDC members will walk with their eyes shut into its studios. I am wondering if NDC loyalists, or even sympathisers, will start rattling away into Asaase Radio mics thrust into their faces without taking care to appreciate the implications. At a time when every avenue for the NDC to be fairly represented in the media has been crushed under the Machiavellian fist of Mr Akufo-Addo, one is watching to see which NDC members will sleepwalk towards Gabby Otchere Dark and his uncle’s radio station and lend them the neutral image they crave to accrue and drive the NDC’s death knell with.
In the last couple of weeks the spin around Akufo-Addo’s Asaase Radio has ran into an overdrive. Within a short while its heavy PR clearly betrays some pages in his subconscious mind. First, it shows that Mr Akufo-Addo has become uncomfortable with, if not intolerant of, the mainstream media houses on whose backs his campaign of deceit rode to power in 2016.
Asaase thus offers him an unfettered control by which he can do propaganda. But that is only possible if the station accrues some image of neutrality to itself. Established media names, such Kwaku Sakyi-Addo, Tommy Annan Forson and co have been paraded as the front men on whose shoulders the station will be promoted. It also means that any NDC person lending his voice, image and moral support to that station is handing a sword to Akufo Addo to obliterate the NDC with.
This year’s election is not only about whether the NDC wins or not. It is about rescuing Ghana from a dictator with a ruthless verve at the beginning of his journey.
What concerns me is how NDC’s National Communications Officer, the party’s media front men and key actors will relate with the poisoned chalice Mr Akufo-Addo is offering through Asaase Radio. Any former appointee or current officer who steps forward to that station must have his name preceded with ‘Judas’.
The fact that the station is managed by Gabby Otchere Darko, Nephew and Chief henchman of President Akufo-Addo should sound enough warning to all who matter to stay miles away from it. This is not a time to be clumsy.
As president of Ghana Mr Akufo-Addo has ensured that media houses friendly to the NDC were closed down. Radio Gold, Radio XYX and scores of media houses across the country were shut, simply because they were suspected to be friendly to the NDC or aired voices critical of the NPP government.
It will make no sense for people who wish to save this country from the open tyranny the media suffers at the hands of Akufo-Addo to lend him a hand of support through Asaase Radio.
It will be shocking to me will be to see NDC members line up to speak on the airwaves of Akufo-Addo’s Asaase Radio. Indeed, no betrayal can be worse, no stab in the back can be more demoralising to the many members of the NDC across the country who long for a fair and balanced media scene.
#SayNoToAsaaseRadio
By Comrade Kofi Adoli