Journalists must be blamed for the politicization of the country

It is very annoying sometimes, and utterly disgusting the other times when journalists who are the cause of the blatant politicization of the Ghanaian society turn around to lament that the country is unduly divided along political lines. Just tune in to any radio or television station and what they do the whole day is to invite ndc/npp stalwarts to do their daily comedy on their precious airwaves. As if that might not be enough, they will open their phone lines and invite people they themselves know to be party serial callers to waste our time to talk about the comedy that the previous political animals put across.

How many times do radio stations/ television invite technocrats, industrialists, agricultural scientists, economists and many others to discuss the way forward for our economy without party lenses? How many times have they invited people to discuss how to form partnerships to go into industry or farming to increase food production? How many times do they invite economists from Legon,knust, ashesi, and other colleges to set the agenda on how to reduce our over dependence on imports and its consequences on our domestic currency?

Journalists describe themselves as the fourth estate of the realm, this is of course true in other jurisdictions, but not in Ghana. The executive implement policies and programs for the welfare of the people, the judiciary see to law and order in the society, the legislature enacts laws to ensure smooth governance of the society and the unofficial fourth realm of the estate which is the media is billed to set the agenda for national discourse. Now if the media sets developmental directions, the public would discuss that, if it sets nationalism agenda, that is what people would dialogue on, and if the agenda is agriculture, of course the public would discuss agriculture in all forms.

Strangly, the Ghana media since 1992 has focused on politics and political comedy and that is exactly what they have managed to get the public to discuss. The media has managed to turn all Ghanaians into political animals and from the morning shows to brakefast shows, all the way to the evening drive home shows, all they discuss is npp/ndc. Now when you set this agenda, do you then expect the public to discuss otherwise? Of course not. If you play "adowa" tune, you don't expect the dancers to dance "Boborbo", they will do majestic "adowa" dance.

The media must help to depoliticize the masses and gear them towards fruitful dialogue. Ghanaian journalists must learn to emulate their counterparts in developed nations like USA, Britain, Germany and others, after all there are no serial callers in any of these countries, even in Nigeria, there is nothing like serial callers that call constantly into radio programs. The media must set development oriented agenda and carry the people along instead of the overly political agenda that they set on daily basis. Instead of helping Ghanaians to think of how to open businesses, they rather bombard them with which political party did this and that. We are in a political season and so far, I haven't heard any single journalist asking prospective candidates what they intend to do about the numerous abandoned projects scattered around the country. The journalistic mediocrity must stop and yield place to a new development oriented agenda setting journalism.

Omanhene Kwabena Asante, O.B., omanhene Yaw Adu Boakye and others must stop inviting ndc/npp fanatics into their studios to discuss politics and yet turn around and cry about over-politicization of the country. We reap what we sow so let's sow good seeds and reap bumper harvest.