Thu, 5 May 2022
Ghana drops in annual press freedom ranking, Founding member of NPP slams Akufo-Addo. Ghana records the poorest showing in two decadesDr. Charles Wereko-Brobbey, a pioneer of private radio broadcast in Ghana has stated that President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo was directly blamable for the country’s huge drop in the annual press freedom ranking.
According to the man known as Tarzan, to the extent that all the security agencies accused of excesses and manhandling of the press were directly under the office of the president, he had to take the blame.Ghana dropped to 60th place in a ranking of 180 countries according to the latest Reporters Without Borders annual press freedom rankings.
The report lamented the deteriorating state of press freedom. Ghana dropped from third to the tenth spot in Africa.“The issue is, you can say what you think you believe and do, but the reality is what all the ratings by reputable international organizations are saying about Ghana now, which is disappointing.“All the people who abuse the law in terms of the media are under the President of Ghana. The National Security Service, the police, the army, all those agencies are under the President,” Wereko-Brobbey, a founding member of the governing New Patriotic Party said in an interview with Citi FM. Meanwhile, Executive Director of the Media Foundation for West Africa, Sulemana Brimah also stressed that he had long back raised concerns about the repressive tendencies of the government and that he was not surprised at the poor showing – classed as Ghana’s worst in two decades. “The signals were clear and some of us had always raised concerns about developments in the country. I have had cause to say that this government has had the weakest media in terms of critical journalism, and it is experiencing the most repressive tendencies in terms of press freedom.” “I am not surprised, to say the least. As I said with the developments we were seeing in this country, it is not surprising that other countries have overtaken us. I however did not expect that we drop this low.”