Former President John Mahama has chastised the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government for closing down some radio stations in the country, ostensibly due to their inability to pay for the renewal of their licenses.
He believes that the radio stations were only closed down because the government “disliked” them – an act that he says could set a bad precedent.
Whiles addressing the Upper East Regional House of Chiefs at Bolgatanga as part of his “Thank You” tour of the region, the former president also stated that the current NPP government is not allowing the media to work freely.
In his own words;
Indeed, there is a whole chapter [in the constitution] on media freedom. But, unfortunately, even when you have the best constitution, you can have governments that try to bend it to be able to achieve whatever ends they have in terms of limiting our democratic rights.
So today, government can say that a radio station has been late in paying its license fee and so we are shutting it down”, John Mahama said.
He added that “When I talk about it, I talk about it because of the precedent it can set. For example, there is a saying in Twi that ‘the stick that is used to beat Baah is the same stick that will be used to beat Takyi
So, the [radio] stations you don’t like, you can close them down today. When another government comes, and they decide to do the same thing to the stations that they too don’t like, what kind of country will we be building
Ace Ghanaian broadcaster, Captain Smart has reacted to John Mahama’s sentiments and according to him, he goofed big time by equivocally stating that the NPP hates radio and Radio Gold and Radio XYZ.
According to Captain, John Mahama is a failure and not fit to be a presidential candidate because he has an evil agenda to close down all NPP affiliated radio and TV stations when he assumes power once again.
Speaking on ONUA TV earlier this morning, Captain Smart stressed that John Mahama has goofed bigtime and he would have failed if he was writing exams.
Source: Gossips24.com
