Anyone Who Deems Gabby's Article About The Works Of Anas As An Attack Has Either Not Read The Article Or Lacks Comprehension

It's so funny how people will clutch to straw in a failed attempt to discredit Anas. The latest attempt is the twist people who have clones of dishonesty in their DNAs are putting on that masterpiece by Gabby Asare Okyere Darko. Let briefly attempt to shed light on some key areas of Gabby's article.

Some online portals in a strategy to court traffic for their portals have cut portions of Gabby's article and sought to project it as a damning verdict on the works of Anas.

For example: "Anas accused me falsely" has been headlined by these portals from the said article. Now read the full paragraph and see if it means what the headline is seeking to portray.

"Don’t get me wrong. I am all for naming and shaming. In fact, I am one of Anas’ biggest fans. I was also one of Anas’ first ‘victims’ by the way. Yes, as way back as 2002, he threw his searchlight, which was then on low battery, on me quite mischievously. I was a newspaper editor and he a reporter and also a student at the University of Ghana, who had a satirical column in the Crusading Guide.

He once accused me FALSELY (with all the emphasis I can conjure) in his column of regularly joyriding (after Saturday football on Legon campus) predatorily in my small VW convertible around Volta Hall, presumably hunting for a beautiful prey. Of course, we laughed over it as friends. Those days, he was just a normal, ambitious, handsome young man, who did not need a mask and could be seen more easily and often by the Volta Hall ladies."

How can this be deemed as a damning verdict when the man is reminiscing some good old days when both of them had good laughs with Anas as a satiric columnist? Maybe some people should find out the meaning of satire.

Another example: "Gabby poses 10 tough questions to Anas"

Hahaha it's so funny how intellectualism has been reduced to headline reading. In those questions, Gabby ostensibly damned society for its rottenness and our reduction of Anas' good works to the similitude of a movie. He further asked society to take a keen interest in Anas' work. In fact, Gabby used all the positive adjectives to describe Anas' work.

Finally, in academic writings such as Gabby's, opening and concluding paragraphs are very important in understanding thrust. Now take a look at Gabby's concluding paragraphs:

" The expectation is that how we treat Anas’ work as a nation may now change for the better under a president who said nearly a decade ago that he would seek to institutionalize the “Anas Principle” to change the culture of widespread bribery in our public sector to one of FEAR of being caught and punished for it. We wait with bated breath how that institutionalization will manifest.

Replacing in our society the culture of corruption with a pandemic culture of FEAR OF CORRUPTION under a democratic setting, where the wheels of justice grind boldly may be the only way to cleanse our society for a cleaner future.

Emperor Tiberius infamously offered retired gladiators tantalizing cash to persuade them to return to the arena of maimed and dead. Many did die on the sword of others".

In these three paragraphs, Gabby firstly is calling on the president to redeem his pledge of using Anas' principle.

He secondly, asked to be used, the culture of fear as in the case of Anas' method, to achieve a cleaner society for the future.

And then he anecdotally, cautioned public officials who take 'gifts', reminding them, doing so, is to die on the sword of others.

For me, it's not even factual to reduce Anas' work to the 'giving and taking of gifts'. I doubt Anas and his Tiger Eye have ever reported anyone who merely took the gift to any state investigative institution. The people caught by Anas, take the 'gifts' and proceed to bend rules or commit the crime. They mostly even voluntarily give Anas more information about how to commit other crimes which in most cases are not part of his investigations in order to get more money from Anas. Nobody puts those words in their mouths.

What I'll like to stress once more is that those dishonest and greedy public officials, don't only take the so-called gifts which undoubtedly are bribes, but proceed therefrom, to commit crimes or break the law/procedures. That's the point!

Please, I edge all Ghanaians to stop relying on headlines to make conclusions so that at least we can break gene of reading-phobia perceived to a Ghanaian trait.