Manasseh’s resignation: DARKNESS AT NOON

By Amankwa Benjamin Kwame.

I have just finished reading the one page resignation letter of Manasseh Azure Awuni from the multimedia group. I was dumbfounded.

Though he assigned no reasons to this resignation, our speculations may just be the reality.

Following his investigative piece “Militia in the heart of the nation”, where he screened hoodlums and thugs of the new patriotic party being trained for reasons known only to the NPP and government, I have come to love the gentleman and believe his neutrality.This was after my previous notion of him of being bias especially to the previous Mahama led administration.

This notion of mine, was rather a misconception as I alluded to after following Manasseh and his works keenly.

That the Nana Akufo Addo led government will boycott multimedia, report Joy fm to the form without substance national media commission and and finally have their surreptitious hands in the young gentleman’s resignation is troubling, disheartening, capricious, an affront to democracy and absurd to say the least.

One of the governments that suffered a lot under Manasseh’s investigative journalism which I think should be encouraged, is the government under former president Mahama.

From the Ford saga to unraveling issues of corruption, Manasseh on daily, weekly and monthly basis chastised the Mahama led administration more forcefully than he has done under and to president Nana Akufo Addo.

Though very irritating to the NDC government at the time, they took it, of course not without complaints, as part of governance and especially democracy. In any case, whether the party liked it or not, Manasseh did published his criticisms and exposès as they came to be known.

One would have thought that, our current president, his excellency Nana Addo Danquah Akufo Addo would uphold this legacy of tolerance of varied opinions by individuals, the media and the public at large but that is not the case. This expectation is exceptionally high when we have the president being touted as a human right activist, legal luminary and all the other jargons that his political appointees use to describe him.

Without mincing words, the Nana Addo led administration has seen the worse form of human right abuses in Ghana ranging from using electric teaser on modern Ghana editor, beating journalists doing their professional work to the ultimate, the death of Ahmed Suale, an investigative journalist with the tiger eye PI team. What a reversal of fortune.

The gagging of innocent Ghanaians who have their natural resources entrusted to the NPP government cannot and will not make them quiet.

The resignation of Awuni can best be described as “darkness at noon”. Are we to be silenced, threatened and forced to resign because we say the truth? Of course not. Talk and speak we must. Even if we are gunned down, our dead bodies will smell to irritate the NPP administration some more.

The president and the NPP government must work as a matter of urgency to redeem their sinking international image with regards to freedom of journalists and journalism, individuals and groups. It is their shame but it is our shame too.

In the year of our Lord,
3rd August, 2019.
Amankwa Benjamin Kwame.