Author: Kay Codjoe, Market Research Consultant and Volunteer Associate at the IMANI Centre for Policy and Education
National interest also requires this country to stop behaving as though every dangerous utterance wrapped in political language automatically becomes sacred democratic speech.
The same MFWA now warning about “weaponisation” of false-news laws previously acknowledged that portions of Section 76 of Act 775 were enacted for legitimate public-safety purposes, particularly where false communications could endanger lives, emergency systems, aircraft operations, or public safety.
That context suddenly cannot disappear merely because enforcement has become politically uncomfortable. Ghana itself has repeatedly witnessed how reckless propaganda, inflammatory broadcasting, misinformation, and digitally amplified extremism can mutate into instability when left unchecked.
In 2020 alone, Ghana recorded at least eight election-related deaths within a politically toxic environment saturated with disinformation, inflammatory rhetoric, propaganda warfare, and rising tensions. The MFWA itself documented serious democratic and media-related tensions during that cycle.
Its own reports also warned about deteriorating professional standards, dangerous online propaganda ecosystems, politically motivated falsehoods, misinformation networks, and even media personalities openly entertaining military intervention within Ghana’s democracy.
That should terrify any serious country.Because once political commentary mutates from criticism into threats against Presidents, glorification of death, calls for violence, fabricated security claims, coordinated disinformation, ethnic mobilisation, and destabilisation rhetoric, the state cannot sit helplessly pretending these are merely “strong opinions.”
No functioning democracy on earth behaves that way. Rwanda ignored extremist propaganda until radio frequencies became conveyor belts for genocide. Kenya ignored escalating hate mobilisation until post-election violence killed over 1,000 people.
Nigeria continues paying in blood for inflammatory religious and ethnic misinformation. Even Ghana has already witnessed dangerous warning signs through Bawku-related misinformation, fake coup rumours, false military claims, fabricated death announcements, and digitally amplified ethnic propaganda ecosystems capable of igniting fragile tensions.
Yet parts of our public discourse now behave as though a TikTok livestream threatening leaders, glorifying death, provoking unrest, or spreading inflammatory falsehoods should enjoy the exact same democratic protection as investigative journalism exposing corruption.
That is not constitutional maturity. That is democratic confusion. Worse, political actors and partisan ecosystems increasingly rally support for individuals accused of dangerous rhetoric while offering little condemnation of the conduct itself.
Every arrest instantly becomes tribal political warfare. The dangerous speech is ignored. The threats are rationalised. The recklessness is excused. That culture is poisonous.
A society that normalises violent rhetoric for political convenience eventually loses the moral authority to condemn instability when that instability mutates into real-world consequences. And this is where the comparison between 2017–2024 and 2025–2026 matters.
Under the Akufo-Addo administration, many controversial arrests reflected a state-versus-critic pattern. Journalists, broadcasters, and political commentators were accused of making allegedly false claims against powerful individuals or politically exposed persons.
Those cases deserved criticism because reputational disputes and controversial allegations should primarily attract civil remedies, not criminal intimidation. But the Mahama-era cases cited by the MFWA reveal something more volatile and digitally combustible.
The speech ecosystem itself has changed. We are no longer dealing merely with newspaper allegations or radio commentary. We are now dealing with algorithm-driven virality, livestream extremism, coordinated digital propaganda, AI-assisted misinformation, online mob mobilisation, and viral threats capable of reaching millions within minutes.
That distinction matters enormously. A journalist exposing corruption is not constitutionally equivalent to someone threatening to kill public officials on TikTok. A political opinion is not identical to coordinated falsehoods capable of triggering panic.
Mocking national tragedies while openly wishing death on leaders is not democratic dissent simply because it trends online. None of this means the state should arrest recklessly. Selective enforcement, politically tinted policing, intimidation of journalists, and vague statutory language remain legitimate democratic concerns.
But national interest equally demands that civil society organisations stop collapsing fundamentally different categories of conduct into one emotionally convenient narrative of “speech suppression.”
Because once society completely loses the boundary between dissent and destabilisation, democracy itself becomes vulnerable to weaponised chaos masquerading as freedom. Protect free speech fiercely. Reform vague false-news laws.
Prioritise civil remedies where appropriate. But never normalise violent rhetoric, coordinated disinformation, incitement, digitally amplified extremism, or reckless propaganda under the seductive banner of democracy. History has already shown where that road ends. And it is never peaceful.
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