BUSINESS AS USUAL WON'T HELP

A SUPREME Court Judge, Professor Justice Samuel K. Date-Bah, could not have put it more succinctly when he admonished Ghanaians to jettison the “Fama Nyame” mentality and rather insist on their rights whenever those rights were being infringed upon.
Delivering the first in the series of the 41st J. B. Danquah Memorial Lectures in Accra on Monday, Prof Justice Date-Bah urged Ghanaians to protest the infringement of their rights or seek redress at the courts, the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), the National Media Commission (NMC) or other arbitration avenues.
For the DAILY GRAPHIC, what Prof Justice Date-Bah has advised Ghanaians to do is very pertinent in the scheme of things and the social and political milieu in which Ghanaians find themselves, especially in this election year when all manner of actions will be perpetrated against some people, all in the name of politics.
For us in the media, one area where the culture of impunity has taken roots concerns the ease with which some incorrigible media men and their newspapers and electronic outlets libel and defame perceived political opponents, without such libelled and defamed personalities seeking redress anywhere, all in the name of “Fama Nyame”.
Recently, there were a cacophony of noises concerning the health status of the flag bearers of two leading political parties. Other people even waded deeper into the gutter by alluding to the fact that one flag bearer was into cocaine use, for which reason he must go for a so-called test to clear his name, as if just anybody can compel another person to clear an imaginary allegation made against that person.
The DAILY GRAPHIC believes that if people began to fight for their right to their good name, liberty and privacy, others would think twice before making comments about people, when they know such comments will not be allowed to go free.
The “Fama Nyame” syndrome has eaten so deep into our national psyche that even when some people blatantly carry out acts which affect us individually and collectively, we are ready to turn a blind eye to them, not wanting to raise a hand in protest.
This docility, no doubt, encourages those whose stock in trade is to capitalise on others’ seeming inability to fight for their rights, to carry on doing whatever they do with impunity.
In our trotros and taxis, on a daily basis we come across drivers and their mates who are ready to act with impunity by cheating their passengers by either arbitrarily increasing the fares or refusing to give them change.
When that happens, woe betide any passenger who decides to insist on his or her right to change or pay the stipulated fare. The other passengers will label him or her “too known” (whatever that means) and quickly send such a person to Coventry for having insisted on his or her right.
In the Metro Mass Transit buses, we come across our fellow citizens who, under the guise of being shameless, would want to travel free on the buses. But we keep quiet over it because we don’t want to incur the ire of such lawless people.
At the same time, when conductors in those buses and some shop keepers intentionally refuse to give us tickets or receipts to reflect the fare we have paid or the VAT we are supposed to pay, instead of protesting, we helplessly grin and go away, allowing the people involved to pocket what should have gone to the state.
Let us all take Prof. Justice Date-Bah’s advice and insist on our rights wherever we find ourselves, for the “only condition for evil to thrive is for good men not to do anything”.