Accra Ghana, Sept. 30th 2010
I have no doubts in my mind that the most compromised journalist during the Kofour regime was the editor-in-chief of the crusading guide newspaper Abdul Malik Kweku Baako who is now the managing editor of the new crusading Guide newspaper. Those who have followed our political intrigues carefully and with a sixth sense know that the new crusading guide newspaper owned and managed by Mr. Baako now is a direct outcome of the journalistic corruption in the reign of President Kufour.
Why, were we not in this country when reports were made open about the efforts by the Kwamena Bartels- led ministry of information to provide a media buffer for the NPP government through a planned and projected corruption and compromises of specific and ‘influential journalists’ in Ghana? Did the list not include Kweku Baako, Egbert Faigbile who invested his compromise in the Ghanaian Observer newspaper and Kwame Sefa Kaye of peace fm? Did the minister ever deny this story at the time? Absolutely no! And yet, there are many undocumented sources and cast iron evidence that confirm this as a fact.
As part of the projected corruption plan of the Kufour led government and executed by Kwamena Bartels, these so-called senior journalists had state of the art high speed internet infrastructure set up for them at their various operating points in Accra. Not only that, it was also reported at the time that these named journalists received an average of US$15.000 a month for the purpose of covering up the truth and serving as hatchet men of media buffer for the Kufour regime. Let the former information minister Kwamena Bartels deny that he didn’t have a policy or practice, official or unofficial at the information ministry where he specifically induced the named journalists and their hirelings with cash, presidential travels and other inducements if indeed, he believes in the truth.
And if you cannot call a man corrupt; who claims to be an Nkrumaist or a CPP but who don’t only openly work against this same group and its leadership, but actually endorses and works for its opponents, who then is corrupt? If you cannot call a man who has permanent interests without enduring principles that can stand the test of time compromised, who then is corrupt? In my books, the most compromised individual in any polity is one who acts as a ‘double agent’ for both government and opposition forces. I double doubt if Mr Baako will pass this test going through our history.
Some of us, young as we may be, find it very appalling that this publicly corrupt journalist will have monopoly over the biggest airwaves in Ghana today to pontificate and castigate others as liars. In my view, a scheming journalist who receives money, travel incentives, Ad contracts and other largesse from a government to compromise him on the truth lacks the morality to cast a stone at anyone for lying.
Let me put this into context; when former president Rawlings alleged in a speech in Ouagadougou that there were such compromised journalists in Ghana who earned US$10.000 during a certain regime, the responses from both the NPP and specifically Kwaku Baako was revealing and/or even exposing. There are a thousand and one journalists in Ghana. It will be interesting to know why it was Malik Baako in particular who was demanding that he publicly names that compromised journalist. Was it because Mr. Baako’s conscience had pricked him so hard he had to come out pratting on the airwaves? An American newspaper editor once described the media as the oxygen of democracy. If it were so in Ghana, I dare say journalists such as Mr. Baako are just simply suffocating our democracy with carbon monoxide through their lies and not oxygen. As for the reaction of the NPP as a party, it only confirmed that corruption is synonymous with their name.
There are two things, may be three that I have concluded about Kweku Baako and his obsession with Former President Jerry Rawlings. First, he is corrupt and knows that President Jerry Rawlings can expose him so he runs to town all the time claiming he will strip JJ naked whenever he feels threats of exposure. Second thing without a doubt is that it has become pretty obvious Malik Kweku Baako craves so badly for the mention of his name by Former President Jerry Rawlings. He hopes to be dignified by that singular act which he has never been able to obtain. And this has been a psychological torture for him. If not, why should he particularly out of thousands of journalist demand such naming? He had obviously come to the clear conclusion that Ghanaians understood the former President correctly and had narrowed it to his name Kwaku Baako. I remember the day the news was first aired, and the subsequent days following the Ouagadougou speech, every joint, every group of minds, in many homes, and in many cars, in offices, on the internet, majority(discerning Ghanaians) all said they’re sure that the unnamed ‘compromised Ghanaian journalist’ mentioned by former President Rawlings is Kweku Baako. Why, because it is public knowledge.
It is not a secret or rather it is an open secret that the owner of the crusading guide newspaper had to part ways with Kweku Baako because he(Kwaku Baako) was using the paper as cover to earn such colossal sums of dollars from the Kufour government without investing a penny of it into that business. Of course, that was not Mr. Baako’s legal business and he could not invest his unethically acquired dollars into the legal establishment of crusading guide newspaper. But he found a way to invest it anyway in the ‘new crusading guide’. We can all testify that there is absolutely nothing new in that newspaper for us.
Kweku Baako should not throw his weight about as if the entire history of this nation has been micro-chipped into his head under lock and key. He is one of a few journalists who have openly violated his own professed principles and ideals. He has contradicted himself so much so that he has become morally corrupted and now he walks about without any moral dilemmas. His psychological anxiety reached a zenith when he suddenly swapped faith and announced his conversion into Islam-bringing a change only to his name. If he claims to be a senior journalist-a title that is self proclaimed- and knows all the things he claims to know, then he should be doing the youth of this nation some good by committing his knowledge permanently on paper.
Because isn’t it a shame, as one of my friends put it, that the two most talking heads, the two co cofusionists, the so called senior journalists, the two most dangerous threats to our polity, Kwesi Pratt and Kwaku Baako have not written any books yet. They only carry ‘documents’. Or have they? All they do is go on radio and talk their heads off. Rather they should do like other senior journalists in other nations are doing-commit their thoughts and knowledge permanently to paper-unless they cannot do so honestly without exposing their ‘double selves’. Or are they waiting for a crazy, overly indulging, and escapading British Craig Murray to come and do that for us?
The truth is one. And according to Dr. Maulana Karenga, an African-African philosopher, the main task of history is to unearth the truth and speak it. Let’s unearth it. Let’s speak it.
SaCut Amenga-Etego
(YFL General Secretary and NDC youth activist)
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