Politics of intolerance, and paranoia

The individuals who made those dangerous remarks on Accra-based Muntie FM should have been arrested by now, with a view to processing them for court on Monday.

I've made the point already: They must be punished to serve as a deterrent to other political fanatics who may choose to go down the same path. Their threat to kill judges must not be taken lightly because of Ghana's dark history of murdering judges. It's especially worrying that those incendiary remarks came on the anniversary of the judges' death.

It's perplexing and perturbing that the police have not acted to bring these guys to book. What are they waiting for? Kennedy Agyapong made similar remarks in 2012 and was promptly arrested and charged with treason. How different is this from that?

It's, however, heartening to see social media unite in condemning the conduct of those panelists as reprehensible and disgusting. As I've said time and time again, wrong is wrong and right is right, irrespective of the players involved. It cannot be wrong if done by an NDC member but right if the same thing is done by an NPP member and vice versa. The country will not progress that way.

The politics of intolerance that has enveloped this country is typified by Kennedy Agyapong's despicable and crude attack on the EC boss as well as the satanic conduct of the Muntie FM panelists.

It is inspired by paranoia on the part of some political elements within the two main parties.

Somehow, they think everyone is out to get them. If is not the EC which is planning to sabotage them, then it's the Supreme Court. Otherwise, it's National Peace Council or some journalists out there.

So they try to be proactive by threatening these organisations and individuals and putting fear into them in the hope that they will not try anything funny. That's the primary basis for all the insults we're seeing now.

But the recourse to irrational insults based on nothing more than paranoia in trying to gain a political advantage is execrable.

This cannot continue. We should - must - not allow self-serving people to hide behind political parties to tear this country apart.

Let's start by making an example out of the Muntie FM panelists.