By Paa Kwesi Plange

The ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) government appears to be seriously flirting with the idea of going back to opposition and that is official. Without any consultations with the National Media Commission or even the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA), the NDC government unilaterally took a decision to ban journalists of the Multimedia Group from covering all state function.

This followed claims by government that the multimedia group has not been fair to the ruling government on their programmes and in its coverage of government activities. The fiat which came as a shock to the media fraternity in this country essentially barred journalists from Joy FM, Adom FM, Asempa FM, Nhyira FM, Hitz FM and Multi TV from all State functions has all but confirmed our worries that the NDC hasn’t changed from its old ways.

To the extent that the ban was extended to include Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDA’s) showed how callous government’s can get sometimes as they go about prosecuting their business. Thankfully reason prevailed and the directive was subsequently withdrawn. Today government officials are back on multimedia platforms and staff of the company can confidently cover state functions without any let or hindrance.

Until it was resolved the development was quite worrying for all true lovers of democracy in this country and across the world. Some of us were taken aback because we had gravitated towards the mindset that the NDC had transformed from its anti-media posturing into media friendly organization that sees the media as a genuine partner in national development. Indeed the party had done a lot in recent times to repair its image in the eyes of the electorate and especially how it was perceived by the media in Ghana.

Those of us who were journalists during the NDC 1 and NDC 2 administrations, we experienced at first glance the brutal suppression of the media by the government of the day. Our senior colleagues like Tommy Thompson, Kofi Coomson, Eben Quarcoo, Kweku Baako, Haruna Atta, Kabral Blay-Amihere, Kwesi Pratt, Cofie Ammuako-Annan to name but a few who lionized press freedom in this country were thrown into jail because they expressed opinions that did not sit well with the government.

There are several examples of the use of draconian laws such as the criminal libel law and the seditious libel laws to punish journalists and publishers in this country under the NDC. However when it dawned on the NDC government that the arrests and incarcerations were rather emboldening rather than scaring journalists they decided to change track.

Enter Ekwow Spio-Garbrah. It is important to state that when Ekwow Spio-Garbrah took over the saddle as Minister of Information he argued for a new regime that would replace custodial punishment of journalists with ‘heavy fines’ instead. It was his reasoning that the imposition of heavy fines by the court on errant media houses would ensure more responsible journalism and cure the mischief of falsehoods being peddled by the media. However true to its incredible spirit the media survived this latest assault and saw out the NDC 2 administration.

As a reporter at the Ghanaian Chronicle during the second NDC government led by President Jerry Rawlings our company driver and I nearly lost our lives on the Tema Motorway after our vehicle was pursued by soldiers of the dreaded 64th Battalion. Our only crime was that we had gone to Tema to carry out investigations into the alleged murder of a taxi driver by a nephew of President Jerry Rawlings.

When the friends of Nii Addy Agbotui got wind of our presence in town they just came after us. With all the impunity they could muster the commandos stormed the Tema Police Station where I was interviewing the officer on duty, took out their guns and threatened to “deal with us” if we did not leave town. Foolishly we refused, insisting that we had come to cover a story and that we weren’t going to leave until we were done.

At that time I thought that once we were in a police station the commandoes would respect the sanctity of the place and behave themselves. I was wrong. They verbally assaulted us and threatened to shoot us in front of the police. It was at that point that it dawned on us that our lives were in danger. The police were powerless and did nothing to disarm the commandos who continued to threaten us with their guns. I couldn’t understand why the police froze and did nothing to protect us from the threatening posture of the friends of the nephew of President Jerry Rawlings.

Indeed we discovered to our chagrin that the officers on duty themselves were also scared of the commandos as we were. These were members of the fearful 64th Battalion and the police men at the station were not going to court any trouble for themselves. To a large extent the commandos succeeded in putting the fear of God in us and but for the grace of God we wouldn’t be alive to tell our story. After escaping with our lives we shared the dramatic story first with our editors who then put it in print.

Thirteen years later the Ghana Armed Forces have done enough to shed off the negative image of the past by incorporating the 64th battalion into the regular army. Ditto the NDC. After spending 8 years in the political wilderness following back to back electoral defeats suffered at the hands of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), the NDC underwent a successful rebranding project ostensibly to make the party more attractive and acceptable to the electorate.

To a large degree the rebranding project was a masterstroke as it won many admirers for the party. Even the private press which had endured a frosty relationship with the NDC in the past seemed palpably impressed by the move even though majority were cautiously optimistic about how things would pan out in the long term. When fortune smiled on the party with success at the 2008 polls it cleared any lingering doubts about the durability of the NDC brand.

Another positive for the NDC following its 2008 electoral victory was that it presented the party with an opportunity to court the media particularly the vibrant private media with a view to make them more amenable to the social democratic credentials of the party. With media savvy professionals like Vice President John Mahama, Fritz Baffoe (A friend of my father), Koku Anyidoho, Samuel Okudjeto-Ablakwa, Fiifi Kwetey et al within its ranks the expectation was that much could be achieved in that direction. Truth be told, however, this was never going to be easy pickings. Indeed the NDC must be commended for initiating plans aimed at winning over a section of the media that its predecessor administrations had persecuted. The truth is that the NDC government might not be able to win over this section of the media overnight but this should not deter them. The party has to continually engage this section of the media with an eye on winning them over in the long term and not in the short term.

We should remember that today if a section of the media is perceived to be against the NDC as a party it is because of the party’s notoriety for employing high-handed tactics against the media in the past. If the high-handed tactics employed against the media in the past are re-introduced in the era of a new NDC then I would be very disappointed indeed. This is why I think the decision to bar journalists from the Multimedia group from state functions or government’s decision to boycott all Multimedia platforms was quite unfortunate and must never be allowed to happen again.

This was the same thinking that created the conditions for the media to gravitate towards the cause of the opposition NPP in the past and the NDC should learn from its mistakes and put an end to this practice once and for all. Instead of blacklisting a section of the media I think they should rather continue to engage all segments of the media with the view to building consensus and clarifying terms of engagement going forward.

This is important because the sustainability of our democratic experiment would largely depend on the total commitment by the political actors in our country to open up the space for public discourse rather than narrowing it.

Ghana’s democracy is growing and it is incumbent on all of us to encourage the use of dialogue as a mechanism to resolving our differences. Thankfully when dialogue was encouraged the issues were resolved. With hindsight I am sure the government would explore dialogue as a way of resolving its issues with the media in the future and not resort to tactics that created credibility problems for the NDC in the past.

*The Writer is a Freelance Journalist and also the Executive Director of the Center for Investigative Reporting Ghana.