Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia
To arrest a National Democratic Congress (NDC) TikToker because he has insulted the former Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, is to play with the intelligence of Ghanaians.
What looked ordinary in the eyes of Ghanaians when the young man was arrested for insulting Dr. Bawumia did not happen from the blues. It was planned and executed by government minders to pour cold water over the public outburst against the rising incident of arrests over expressions not inuring to the interest of government.
Since when did the President start ordering arrests of NDC-inclined social media activists when they insult opposition figures in the country?
It is a novelty which smacks of mischief. It is intended to lend weight to the arrest of persons who express opinions unpalatable to some government appointees, who have a hand in the trampling of free speech, an important ingredient of democracy.
Questions may be posed as to why the conclusion that the President is behind the arrest of persons who say things he is opposed to.
When his predecessor was at the helm, he penned a letter to him expressing dismay about what he said were clear attack on free speech in the 21st Century. Since Nana Akufo-Addo was the President, and of course on whose desk the buck stopped, it stands to reason therefore that the usurpation of the freedom of citizens who exercise their right to free speech is being ordered by him.
Anyway, the former Vice President has markedly stood against the arrest of the young man and demanded that he be released to go and continue with his life. He has not complained to anybody about the insults the suspect hurled at him.
Government has ordered the arrest in order to manage the mass disgruntlement over the rising number of arrests against social media activists.
Dr. Bawumia has proven that he is tolerant and would never steer away from this sterling attribute which, President John Mahama who has evidently suggested, is opposed to.
As Manasseh Azure put it “the credibility of Dr. Bawumia’statement lies in the fact that, as Vice President, he was constantly abused and insulted for eight years without such arrests.”
Apart from not ordering such arrests even as he was vilified by agents of the NDC flagbearer, he did not respond to the lies and his contemptuous and erroneous tag of ‘Bawuliar’ by John Mahama assigns.
Today, the NDC is in government and President John Mahama is at the throttles but unable to take a dose of what he prescribed for politics and would warn his compatriots to be careful lest they are traced when they insult him, using gadgets ordered by former President Akufo-Addo to check extremists.
The IP address is today being used to track down those who do unto President John Mahama what his assigns did to President Akufo-Addo and Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, the difference being that the latter did not order arrests during their tenure at the helm of the ship of state.
