The 2016 flagbearer of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Nana Akufo-Addo is asking media practitioners in the country to resist all forms of intimidation which impede the progress of their duties.
He pointed out that the media; which is the fourth arm of government has a vital role to play in the country’s democratic dispensation.
Speaking at a media interaction on Thursday night at his Nima residents, Nana Addo described the invitation of Citi FM’s Chief Executive Officer, Samuel Atta-Mensah by the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) over the Nayele Ametefeh cocaine saga is an unfortunate return to the era of silence.
[contextly_sidebar id=”tUbynxQZrTXey6NC1JH3H6eUa421Di1C”]According to him, the President, John Mahama’s decision to comment and defend the actions of the BNI was uncalled for.
“I was particularly sad that on the occasion of Radio Eye, the President of the Republic himself should take it as an opportunity to defend what the Bureau of National Investigations and others have done in calling the Citi FM reporters,” he remarked.
The CEO of Citi FM was on November 17 invited by the BNI to answer questions in connection with a publication by citifmonline.com about the arrest of a Ghanaian woman who carried 12.5kg of cocaine into the United Kingdom who reportedly traveled with a diplomatic passport.
Mr, Attah-Mensah’s invitation raised concerns about a possible intimidation of the media by the government through national security operatives.
This forced the President to intervene and defend the actions of the BNI stating that “once it has been reported that this woman who is not a diplomat is in possession of a diplomatic passport, the Bureau of National Investigations had to perform its duties.
“As irony will have it, the primary function of that institution is the pursuit of information for the security and safeguard of our nation and its citizens. In the investigations, the BNI narrowed down the stories to the original source of dissemination in Ghana to the Radio station and the Newspaper.”
But according to Nana Addo, every citizen in the country “should take very much to heart and that is the pressmen and media practitioners who were summoned by state agencies responsible for national security to come and explain what it is that they have put out.”
The former Attorney General under the Kufuor administration described the BNI’s action as an “unfortunate step and we are going backwards instead of forward in the development of our media in the country.”
By: Efua Idan Osam/citifmonline.com/Ghana
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