The National Youth Organizer of the ruling New Patriotic Party, Salam Mustapha has admitted that the sixteen persons involved in last Saturday night, October 7 2023 invasion and disruption of United Television late-night entertainment programme dubbed ‘United Showbiz’ are members of the New Patriotic Party.
He indicated that he cannot deny the identity of the sixteen persons involved in the action even though he does not approve of their action.
In a media interview on Monday, October 9 2023, The New Patriotic Party National Youth Organizer, Mr. Salam Mustapha stated that the sixteen persons that invaded into the studios of United Television on Saturday night are card bearing members of the party.
“I will not be hypocrite, I know them. They are all bonafide members of the party. In fact some of them are constituency organizers of the party in the Greater Accra Region and the Greater Accra Regional Deputy Youth Organizer who lead them to the studio. I am told they went there after a caucus meeting Saturday evening”.
Salam Mustapha
Mr. Salam Mustpaha further posited that the sixteen persons involved in Saturday night’s action are not violent individuals. According to him, the actions of the sixteen persons were fueled by their displeasure by comments made by one of the pundits of the programme in the previous edition against the New Patriotic Party.
NPP Still Upholds Media Freedom
The National Youth Organizer of the New Patriotic Party emphasized that the New Patriotic Party and President Akuffo-Addo’s administration is very committed to the freedom of journalists’ and media practitioners in the country.
Again, Mr Mustapha indicated that as the National Youth Organizer of the New Patriotic Party, he takes full responsibility of the actions of the sixteen persons considering the fact that they are all under his youth wing.
He assured the general public and all media practitioners that such incident will not happen again as the New Patriotic Party has taken measures to prevent it reoccurrences.
However, a private legal practitioner and seasoned journalist, Samson Lardy Anyenini Esq. asserted that media freedom keep worsening under the ruling New Patriotic Party administration.
He bemoaned of attacks on journalists by thugs affiliated to the ruling New Patriotic Party and expressed his disappointment of why President Akuffo Addo and the New Patriotic Party has refused to condemn such unfortunate actions under its administration.
“Press freedom has been under siege particularly under this regime. I say this with no apologies for saying so because the evidence are just too appalling; they are just too much. From party thugs at the very start of this administration in their very first term, even attacked a court. Who would have imagine this will happen in our democracy but the question is what happen to those who engage in such act.
Samson Lardy Anyenini
According to Mr. Lardy Anyenini, it is completely unlawful for the New Patriotic Party to have even written a letter to the United Television requesting for review of its late-night programme.
He therefore called on the Ghana Police Service to immediately take actions to prosecute the sixteen persons involved in the unlawful invasion of the studios of United Television on Saturday night, October 7 2023.
Some sixteen persons suspected to be affiliated with the ruling New Patriotic Party on Saturday, October 7, 2023 invaded the studio of Accra-based United Television during its late-night entertainment programme dubbed ‘United Showbiz’.
It is reported that these sixteen persons believed to be affiliated to the ruling government interrupted the live late-night entertainment show of the station resulting to the discontinuance of the programme for several minutes until the arrival of the Ghana Police Service to restore order.
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