Baby Ansaba Is A Disgrace To The Journalism Profession In Ghana

I listened to Ebenezer Ato Sam aka Baby Ansaba on myjoyonline .com on 2nd February 2010 and I must say that he is an archetypal example of what gutter journalism is all about in Ghana!
Having worked with Baby Ansaba on the Free Press newspaper in the 90’s and we all agreed that, we were fighting a dictatorial regime as well as a regime that left the criminal libel law in the statute books to cow journalists to submission and suppression, I can only say I am hugely appalled at his stance now having listened to him speak on myjoyonline.com.
Around the very same time in 1997/98 when Kweku Baako and Haruna Attah were imprisoned for a month each over a case brought against them by then First Lady Nana Konadu Rawlings, Baby Ansaba was also in jail for a month over a libel case!
When I met him later in 1998 he told me that, “He will never forgive the NDC for the one month he served in jail” And when later he started publishing lots of stories against the NDC when he was on the Daily Guide Newspaper I met him at their Adabraka office in Accra we walked over to the old-timers spot for some drinks and I told him to tone down on his attacks on NDC, he told me “He could not tone down with facts”
Is it therefore not so disgusting that, the same Ansaba who said he could not “tone down with facts” is now all over the media alleging among other things that, all stories he wrote about the NDC and the health of now President Mills were fabrications!!
This is outrageous and an insult on the sensibilities of Ghanaians! Let me talk about he describing stories about the health of then candidate Mills as fabrications; as Ansaba’s hallucinations!
The health status of President Mills before 2008 was a FACT! Issues about his health got into the media as a leaked text message which was contained in a message Spio Garbrah sent to the Founder of the NDC in 2007. The media picked it up from there including Ansaba.
Subsequently then Candidate Mills was interviewed from his sick bed in a South African Hospital by Joyfm and he admitted that, he was in South Africa to undergo an operation. How can Baby Ansaba now master the courage to tell Ghanaians that, he was deceived to lie about the health of President Mills when even it was factual? He even went ahead to describe such facts as fabrications! Can somebody tell me if the meaning of fabrications has changed?
Baby Ansaba must be told that, much as it is exciting to travel on the same flight with the president of Ghana for an assignment that does not in itself constitute enough bases for these childish allegations!
If Baby Ansaba is now finding him-self needlessly guilty over a crime he never even committed in the first place and even went ahead to admit engaging in some unethical journalistic conduct then the Ghana Journalist Association as well as the National Media Commission must hold a meeting with him to listen to him much more to find out what else he did!
The NDC as a party must be careful of such a treacherous character. His utterances now must not be taken as doing propaganda for the NDC. The NDC must instead see him to be an opportunist who is struggling to reap where he has not sown! The New Patriotic Party (NPP) which is directly or indirectly now the subject of Ansaba’s wild allegations must disassociate it self from him.
The party must challenged him to provide bare evidence about how he was used to discredit Attah Mills and the NDC. His allegation also that, he was “used” by former president Kufour to malign others must not be allowed to go as the musings of a frustrated and opportunistic Journalist who is bent on doing anything to please his new masters!
Baby Ansaba must also be told that, he is nailing himself professionally by these unguarded utterances! What goes around come around Baby must be told. He must also be told that, he is a huge disincentive to the Journalism profession not only a disgrace to it.
Characters like Ansaba make it very easy for some funny characters in society to always look down upon Journalist in Ghana. Infact Journalism as a profession is not a bad one. Characters and charlatans like Ebenezer Ato Sam are responsible for the negative perception some in society have about journalists and the Journalism profession.
A big Shame to you Ebenerzer Ato Sam aka Baby Ansaba!!
Akilu Sayibu UK
Email: Akilu.Sayibu@live.uwe.ac.uk