NPP Communicator Mustapha Hameed has described undercover journalist, Manasseh Azure Awuni as someone whose behavior is to act in a way that is likely to elicit attention.
According to the KNUST lecturer, "Manasseh is an attention-seeking freak, a maniac who cannot even help himself".
His comments come after it emerged the Joy FM's investigative journalist has been flown outside Ghana because he became a target of death threats.
The threats come after he produced a documentary titled 'Militia in the heart of the nation', which revealed the presence of pro-government militia force working at the former seat of government, the Christiansborg Castle.
But Mustapha Hameed reacting to the issue said: "Even A Plus is a free man and nobody is threatening him, he has even started a movement in an attempt to continuously make this government unpopular".
He continued: "Nobody spews garbage and vitriol like Mugabe Maase, he’s walking freely and spewing more invectives. Nobody has threatened him, nobody cares about him. Even, Bobie Ansah is still in active radio practice. What has Manasseh Azure Awuni said or done that these guys haven’t said or done. They have called the president all the ugly names and described this party and its government in the most disparaging of terms, nobody has time for them. The farthest we’ve ever gone is the National Media Commission."
Below is the full write-up:
Mustapha Hameed:
Even A Plus is a free man and nobody is threatening him, he has even started a movement in an attempt to continuously make this government unpopular. Manasseh Azure Awuni is only being threatened by his conscience. When you lie for relevance, it becomes a cycle; you have to come up with more lies to maintain and sustain more relevance.
Nobody spews garbage and vitriol like Mugabe Maase, he’s walking freely and spewing more invectives. Nobody has threatened him, nobody cares about him. Even, Bobie Ansah is still in active radio practice. What has Manasseh Azure Awuni said or done that these guys haven’t said or done. They have called the president all the ugly names and described this party and its government in the most disparaging of terms, nobody has time for them. The farthest we’ve ever gone is the National Media Commission.
People lie everyday, they impugn on people’s integrity with lies they can never substantiate. Last week it was Kofi Bentil and the guys at IMANI, they called a press conference and spewed the most disgusting forms of lies and peddled horrendous untruths. They sought to create the impression that the president was conniving with some IOCs to steal $30 billion of oil resources. We called them out for their lies, that is where it ends. We are too busy building this country that we will be wasting time on people who so badly depend on attention as the oxygen they require to stay relevant. IMANI has apologized, we move on.
Manasseh is an attention-seeking freak, a maniac who cannot even help himself, there was a national conversation on political party vigilantism. Professor Henrietta Bonsu coined a new phrase for it as private militia, Manasseh never had the opportunity to appear before that Commission. As an attention maniac, he had to find a way of making it about himself, that is when he came up with this lie of a documentary. Where on planet earth, do you find a militia admonishing and advising its members to be of good behavior and stay away from trouble? Manasseh threw his integrity and credibility to the dogs, and had to come up with the sorta propaganda that could make Goebbels turn in his grave, just so we can make the discussion about him.
Subsequently, the government has taken the matter to the NMC and De-Eye has sued him. Where is the threat coming from? And you have his colleagues joining in the lie, propagating even more lies creating the impression that someone is after them. If someone is indeed threatening Manasseh, he shouldn’t look far from the people who stand to gain a major political capital in the unlikely event something happens to him (Allah forbid).
What is it that our critics are saying that we cannot respond to them that we would’ve to resort to threats and intimidations? Nobody has that time.
Manasseh lied, multimedia and their editors and producers put their integrity on the line, they lied for relevance, it only blew up in their faces.
This government welcomes all of its critics, constructive ones and the destructive ones alike, they’re the reason why in just two years, we have achieved phenomenal feats.
Manasseh was so ashamed after his documentary, he disappointed his fans and those who sat in anticipation of a blockbuster kinda documentary but only saw a comedy. When the documentary came to an end, what everyone was asking was, “Ah, is that all?”. Even Kwasi Twum was disappointed.
Journalists behave as they operate a rather dark profession that has no ethics, where no morals is expected of them. They are constantly impugning on the integrity of others without basis, attacking all manner of persons. The very moment you fight back, they start screaming they’re being attacked as if there’s a law that says we must grovel before them and take whatever they tell us without question.
Bottom line, Manasseh lied, Multimedia lied, all the attention-seeking gimmickry is just to cover up the lies.