Ghanaian Radio Stations And The English Language

Dear Reader,

I do not have enough words to express my disgust at the current trend of Local Radio Stations who employ personnel to deliberately massacre the English Language. I do not know what the objective is. If its humor I think it would be proper to have a special time for that kind of cheap humor. Millions of Ghanaians listen to Radio Stations every day for news and entertainment. The radio is strategic for the dissemination of news in the sense that it is portable and very affordable.

You cannot imagine how many people rely on radio presenters for news pertaining to National issues general education and entertainment. You will agree with me that most of us had our first lesson on Ebola on the Radio.

Recently, however there is a growing trend of local radio stations to employ presenters to deliberately slay the English language.

It is enough that we have to deal with the excessive exaggerations which many a time distort the pertinent issues being discussed. It is sad to note that we sometimes laugh when we hear reports on rape because of the way the presenters put it. Have we ever stopped to think that there is a victim whose life has just ended because of this tragedy?

My mother listens to radio as do millions of Ghanaians and for a country that has a significant number of its population as functional illiterates it behooves on us to eradicate illiteracy. How are we able to justify this irresponsible behavior? Haven't we always appreciated the power of radio? How dare we blame teachers for poor WASSCE Results when Radio presenters are allowed grammatical blunders!

PLEASE PUT AN END TO IT! Radio should Educate, I can't stress that enough, Inform and Entertain. I must commend The Ghana Broadcasting Corporation who have over the years delivered high quality news in our local dialect. It is a pity they are the most under rated.

Please let us protest against this by shunning these radio stations. It is we who are at risk in this age where Information is everything. Now before some mischievous people cast aspersions on my argument I will point out that I am not saying that English is far superior to our native dialects, I even wish the president will opt to speak Hausa at International Conferences and have an interpreter. I love the French for that. All I am saying is if it must be Done it must be Done Right.

Regards,
Maame