Between hell and purgatory

The latest distinguished personality to weigh in on the Montie Three petition drive is former Head of the School of Mass Communications at the University of Ghana, Prof. Kwame Karikari, who was until very recently the Executive Director of the Media Foundation for West Africa.

According to Prof. Karikari, the members of the Council-of-State, to whom President John Dramani Mahama recently forwarded some signed petitions demanding the immediate release of the Montie Three gang, have a bounden obligation to offer the President the sort of advice that is apt to guarantee the nation sociopolitical stability and cultural and behavioral decency of the sort that have been known to protect, preserve and consolidate the coveted values of the most advanced of civilized democracies

(See “Montie 3: Give ‘Wise’ Counsel – Karikari to Council-of-State” Classfmonline.com / Ghanaweb.com 8/10/16).

While he earnestly prays that this presidential advisory body, composed of some of the most prominent and eminent Ghanaian citizens, would be morally evenhanded and critical in their deliberation on issues pertaining to the indictment, prosecution and conviction of Messrs. Salifu Maase (aka Mugabe), Alistair Tairo Nelson and Godwin Ako Gunn, nevertheless, the City University of New York- and Columbia University School of Journalism-educated Prof. Karikari is unequivocally clear about what sort of decision progressive and peace-loving Ghanaians expect from the Council-of-State, Ghana’s functional equivalent of Britain’s Privy Council.

“I hope they will not come out to advise the President… wrongfully, because what is going on [clearly] appears to be really blackmailing the President. There are people who are saying, ‘If you don’t do this, we won’t vote for you.’ You will not vote for a President because he has not pardoned somebody who has threatened the lives of public officers? So, we are hoping that the Council-of-State will come out with a perspective that will bring sanity to the [country’s political] atmosphere.”

It may be recalled that Messrs. Maase, Nelson and Gunn were recently arraigned before judges of the Supreme Court and charged with threatening the lives of some members of the Apex Court, bringing the Court’s image and reputation into abject disrepute and vowing to sexually violate Chief Justice Georgina T. Wood, if the Court delivered a decision that did not favor the Electoral Commission (EC), in the matter of Ramadan-Nimako vs. the EC, regarding the defendant’s alleged stonewalling of the Supreme Court’s order to delete the names of registered voters who registered to vote in the 2012 general election by the use of their National Health Insurance Scheme-issued ID cards.

The Montie-Fm Gang, composed of a radio talk-show host and two panelists, is presently serving a 4-month’s prison sentence, each, at the Nsawam Medium-Security Prison. For Prof. Karikari, what is at issue here regards a group of people who have willfully elected to disregard the psychologically and morally healthy rules of civilized society by criminally using the electronic media to foment hatred and incite mayhem. In effect, Messrs. Maase, Nelson and Gunn have chosen the proverbial primrose path of total societal destruction in the name of partisan politics.

“It is unfortunate that the misdeeds of people who have no regard for [the] ethics of journalism, the good manners of speech, will bring this country to such a brink of a crisis of sorts. It is unfortunate that leaders of a ruling party will provoke tension between the executive and the judiciary.”

In the preceding quote, Prof. Karikari is clearly alluding to the horrific decision of such Mahama cabinet appointees as Foreign Minister Hanna Tetteh, Education Minister Jane Naana Opoku-Agyeman and her notorious scofflaw deputy, Mr. Samuel Okudzeto-Ablakwa, and the Culture and Tourism Minister, Mrs. Elizabeth Ofosu-Agyare, to sign the petition document seeking to pressure President Mahama to invoke his privilege of pardon and mercy under the country’s 1992 Constitution to nullify the verdict of the Supreme Court.

For Prof. Karikari, it is far more important for President Mahama to staunchly uphold the high-minded values of civilized society than facilely fall victim and prey to political opportunism. Let’s all say “Amen!” to Prof. Karikari’s all-too-sound admonishment to the Chief Resident of the Flagstaff House.