An Open Letter To U. S. Senator Hank Johnson

U. S. Senator Hank Johnson

Dear Senator Johnson,

I shall go straight to the point: For the sake of the ordinary people of our homeland Ghana, you must persuade the U.S State Department to issue an immediate travel ban, on Hon. Kennedy Agyapong. Sir, the painful reality of our society, is that our nation's only hope, in the fight against high-level corruption, is a free press. We cannot rely on our political class to do so willingly.

By his barbaric actions over the years - including publicly revealing the identity of Ahmed Hussein-Suale - who was subsequently murdered - Kennedy Adjapong has acted in ways that constantly jeopardise the stability of Ghanaian democracy. Reckless politicians like him must be stopped from finally tipping our country over the precipice.

In any serious nation, he would have been expelled from Parliament, and form his political party, long ago. Yet, he continues to wield considerable influence in our country - mostly through the issuance of public threats that amount to holding the governing party (ironically a political party full of decent men and women frightened of this ogre) to ransom.

Sir, please do everything in your power, to get the U. S. State Department to issue a travel ban against Hon. Kennedy Adjapong, as soon as practicable. And, for good measure, get your counterparts in the European Parliament, to do same too.

That is the only way to get verbally-aggressive politicians like him in our country to understand clearly that they cannot play fast and loose with the human rights of journalists in Ghana, without attracting international opprobrium, which stops them from travelling to the U.S. and Europe - and also results in the freezing of their offshore bank accounts and assets too.

Enough is enough. We refuse to be cowed by the powerful people in Ghana who instigate violence against journalists. Help those of us within Ghana's media fraternity, who do not fear the barbarians in the midst of our nation's political class, to empower our younger colleagues to stand up against these would-be oppressors - hypocrites posing as believers in democracy: but who in reality are greed-filled oligarchs, who brook no opposition to the realisation of the selfish ends they seek, in our fear-laden society. Haaba.