Sharing scrupulous or unscrupulous messages?

Traditionally, among Akans, if someone insults a chief and he doesn’t hear it and another person goes to inform the chief that he has been insulted by obenten or asumasi, the one who informed the chief about the pejorative utterance or insult is considered as the one who really insulted the chief. Can we therefore, arrest and punish the one who aired this unscrupulous audio about our king, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II?

The expression, “scrupulous people” can be explained as people who have moral integrity and usually act in strict regard for what is considered right or proper in every aspect of life.

In other words, scrupulous embraces what is morally, ethically and conscientiously acceptable or right while unscrupulous encompasses whatever is considered to be unethical, cutthroat, immoral and unconscionable.

This write-up aims at discussing unscrupulous messages and how to nip them in the bud.

Can we attribute a swift sharing of unscrupulous messages or negative utterances or deeds of people to social media? Why have Ghanaians never shared the rich or educative-life transforming messages of Bishop Dag Heward-Mills who has been preaching everywhere for years?

Is it possible, that some of his bishops who recently resigned from his ministry or Lighthouse Chapel International are the brains behind this unscrupulous audio?

It is an indisputable fact that ill feeling or aggrieved feelings caused by a sense of having been badly treated can lead to character assassination and even if not handled swiftly may lead to destruction of precious lives. People who become highly resent without resorting to seeking resolution are bound to cause mayhem.

I pray and wish that Bishop Dag Heward-Mills would be treated like a father and genuine man of God who might have said something unpalatable about a king, as well as Ghanaians not counting out his trans-generational impact in our world.

Considering his speech in context communication, he seems not to have premeditated on being sarcastic about our revered Otumfuo Osei Tutu II.

I really sympathise with Bishop Dag Heward-Mills, and hope the audio which can be considered as unethical was not doctored. How can we tell if the audio was not doctored?

What can we do as Ghanaians or Africans to eradicate prompt propagation of unbeneficial/unscrupulous news to the detriment of good news on the social media platforms?

Social media platforms have now become the major media of communication everywhere. The audio which was recorded about twenty years ago has just spread in the past two weeks like a harmattan fire. Why didn’t people share the audio twenty years ago? It seems the person who was the brains behind the audio now was then a member of Lighthouse Chapel International.

Is the purported audio about the king beneficial or unbeneficial? We need cyber security experts to assess or ascertain the veracity of the purported audio by Bishop Dag Heward-Mills that has generated a heated debate and anxiety in the country, particularly, in the Asante Kingdom. Social media can be considered as a mixed blessing. It is an indisputable fact that the benefits of social media in all over the world cannot be overemphasized, but its devastating deviations among Africans are enormous. Has social media become an indirect rule system in Africa? It seems the originators of the various social media platforms aim at compelling Africans to use the social media platforms to destroy one another. It is obvious that our colonial masters cannot now have direct access in our affairs, but they can hide behind their technology to incite Africans (Owusu Tabiri, 2019). What is the way forward? All Africans, particularly, Ghanaians should be circumspect and courteous in the use of social media platforms, especially when it comes to sharing unscrupulous and unverified videos or news. What we need to learn to do is to report any derogatory utterance about our leaders to the security experts for interrogation and verification instead of being fond of sharing unscrupulous messages on social media platforms.

Moreover, all leaders, especially the preachers must be careful in their presentations as people who may not like them can willfully fish out their loopholes one day in their utterances with the intention of persecuting them to suit their whims and caprices.

In short, is it possible for the government to enact laws that will compel all and sundry to hand over any video/message that worth sharing to the security experts instead of resorting to swift sharing so as to enable the experts to use every genuine possible means to ascertain the veracity and authenticity of the news? In other words, is it possible to place sanctions on swift sharing of audios/videos or messages without proper verification/validation? I think the government must have a second look at media freedom in Ghana.

Let us start sharing the good deeds of our religious, traditional, academic and political leaders instead of being fond of swiftly propagating shortcomings of leaders on social media platforms.

“Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brothers/sisters to dwell together in unity!” (Psalm 133:1)

Long live Ghana!

Long live Otumfuo Osei Tutu II!

The writer is a lecturer at the Ghana Communication Technology University

Email: [email protected]