• He explained that it is a worrying trend that those in power abuse it so much but are not equally punished for them
• He also questioned the import of the statements made by the MP in relation to attacks he urged the public to exert on the journalist
Kwesi Pratt Jnr, the Managing Editor of the Insight newspaper, has questioned how power in the country is used to clamp down on persons in and outside power, and how there is an unfair distribution of same, no matter how threatening it is to national security.
Reacting to the recent threats by Member of Parliament for Assin Central, Kennedy Agyapong, on a journalist, the astute journalist said that it is a worrying trend that such persons can sit on air and make such threats but no actions will be taken against them.
"Even in the parts of the world where we claim that the governments are authoritarian and what not, this will not be allowed to pass, but in Ghana, it passes. And here's the situation that the police is being accused for actually collaboration and protection of a murderer and nothing happens,” he said.
He explained further that it gets even more disturbing that after such statements are made, nobody asks questions on what the actual import of that statement is, stressing that it should be condemned and disallowed entirely.
"This is a country in which a Member of Parliament can actually sit on television, sit on radio, and instigate people to beat up a journalist, and he says, I'll pay for it. Now, when somebody says beat somebody and I'll pay for it, what does it mean? Is it to pay for the fine? Is it to bribe those who are going to be investigating the matter? Is it to bribe the judiciary when the matter gets to the court? This is a very weird situation, and we cannot allow this to continue forever,” he admonished.
Kwesi Pratt Jnr, speaking on the Wednesday, July 14, 2021, edition of Metro TV’s Good Morning Ghana, and monitored by GhanaWeb, also raised concerns on how power in this country is selective, choosing only to clamp down on persons who are only out of power in a way that is worrying to the growth of the country.
"And then there is the case of how we handle persons in power, and how we handle persons out of power. As we speak, there are some opposition elements who are facing trial for statements they allegedly made which threatened individual security and so on. This will never go to trial. If you know the trend of what has been happening in this country, I don't think that this will ever go to trial and that's the most unfortunate part. We should treat citizens as equals - the principle of the equality of citizenship is lost in our country, and I'm very deeply worried,” he said.
Kwesi Pratt Jnr is the Managing Editor for The Insight newspaper