The Executive Director of the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA), Sulemana Braimah, has described comments by the Chairman of the National Media Commission (NMC), Yaw Boadu Ayeboafo, that it is wrong for the media to blacklist any member of the public as ‘unfortunate.’
Yaw Boadu Ayeboafo described as “dysfunctional and unproductive” recent calls by the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) for media houses to blacklist two politicians allegedly associated with persons who attacked journalists.
Citi FM’s Northern regional correspondent, Mohammed Aminu Alabira was allegedly attacked by the Member of Parliament for Yendi Constituency, Farouk Aliu Mahama, while covering the NPP’s parliamentary primaries.
Also, persons suspected to be supporters of the MP for the Awutu Senya East Constituency, Mavis Hawa Koomson, are also accused of attacking a journalist in the Central region.
According to Mr Braimah, considering the NMC Chair started as a journalist, rose through the ranks and also served as a member of the GJA, the comments were wrong.
Speaking in an interview on Joy FM’s Midday News on February 12, he said “Absolutely, it is actually a very very unfortunate statement. It ought not to have come from someone like Mr Yaw Boadu Ayeboafo, who has been a journalist, who has been an editor, who has been a leader at the GJA before and has before now been the Executive Secretary of the National Media Commission and he is a lawyer .
“He knows what the constitution says about press freedom. He knows how our standards of press freedom have been deteriorating over time.”
The Executive Director of MFWA explained that Mr Ayeboafo’s comments might confirm suspicions among people that he does not want to challenge the government, given that his appointment as NMC chair was by the government.
“In fact, during his tenure as Chairperson of the National Media Commission things have gotten worse. And people then will say is the NMC not acting because the government of the day is the one that appointed him to represent the president on the National Media Commission and that is the question that people are beginning to raise.
“That is it because he is the representative of the president and got elected by his peers as the Chair and therefore he will not be happy with actions that sort of against persons in the party of the president as in the case of Hawa Koomson and Farouk Mahama,” he added.
Meanwhile, Mr Braimah advised the NMC Chair to allow other institutions to function without hindrances.
“My advice to him is if he would not lead the NMC in the way that will give us results. He should not be impeding actions by other organisations to try and do what the NMC must be doing which it is not doing,” he added.
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