I see culture of ‘bizarre intolerance’ – Gabby Otchere-Darko

Gabby Otchere-Darko, a leading member of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) has offered a dissenting view to the one expressed by Sir Sam Jonah over what he terms to be ‘culture of silence’ in the country.

Gabby prefers to term the current situation as ‘Culture of Bizzare Intolerance’ where he observed that some people do not want their views to be subjected to scrutiny.

“What I see now in Ghana is a Culture of Bizarre Intolerance but by a Special Class who believe they have the right to speak and squeal anyhow but others must be silent and not challenge the views of that Special Class”.

Gabby believes that the persons exhibiting such tendencies are not staying true to the tenets of democracy as democracy is birthed on the principle of ‘give and take’.

“A true democrat is one who can give and take in equal measure. I will defend your right to criticise me harshly and expect you to defend my right to criticise your criticism of me harshly. Our styles may differ. But, that’s democracy for you,” Gabby tweeted..

Speaking about a Rotary event over the weekend, Sam Jonah bemoaned the culture of silence in the country.

“What is baffling is that those who used to have voices on these things seem to have lost their voices. People speak on issues based on who is in power. Is our deafening silence suggesting that we are no longer concerned about issues that we complained about not too long ago, particularly when those issues persist….. The molestation of and in some cases assassination of journalists, murder of MPs, corruption, the harassment of anti-corruption agents.

“We have just finished another election, the 8th in the series since the beginning of our fourth Republican democratic experiment. As usual, the accolades came in from all corners of the world, and we took them with pride. What we failed to tell the world is that some people lost their lives in the course of the election.”