General News of Wednesday, 10 February 2010

Source: Dailypost

Searchlight, Pettiness And Bad Reputation

In one of his publications, Ken Kuranchie, the new apostle of journalistic sagacity published stories in the Searchlight bordering on vehicle auctions at the Tema Port. He got some of his facts right. However, most of the issues raised were distorted to suit his agenda and to subject others to hate. The Editor of the Daily Post, Mike Dokosi was one of the targets of the Searchlight and for good reasons a few others who have made it impossible for Kuranchie’s preferred political party to retain political power in the 2008 elections.

The Daily Post has done a prognosis of the vile reportage in connection with an auctioned vehicle, Renault Megane which the Editor had applied for and was duly offered. Ken Kuranchie sought to create the impression as if it was wrong for the Editor, a citizen of this country to apply to buy an auction car. As we write, the vehicle in question is not being used by the Editor because he chose to offer it to a friend upon his realization that it was not in good use. As we write, Mike continues to use the car he had driven during the reign of the NPP.

In any case, there is nothing to be ashamed about for being part of a group of Ghanaians who duly deserved these auctioned vehicles. If Kuranchie suffers from selective amnesia, then we wish to remind him to contact Ms. Irene Torshie Addo, the NPP Member of Parliament for Tema West to find out if she also benefited from the auction at the Tema Port. We have scrutinized the list of those who have benefited from the auctioned vehicles and wish to state on authority that the transactions are above board and include people from all shades of the political spectrum. The list also has people with no known political affiliation.

The deliberate attempt to isolate the Mike dokosi, Andy Kankam and Ametor Quarmyne could only be the work of an evil mind. We guess the defeat of the NPP and the cutting of huge financial supplies to the likes of Kuranchie is driving him to the point of megalomania. It is only a hypocrite and bigot who could stoop so low to publish such verbiage. It is unfortunate that we have to dignify such rubbish by even replying to such arrant nonsense. However, we have no choice but to place in the public domain the characters behind the publication and what they stand for.

Unless Ken wants the people of Ghana to believe that if you share in the Social Democratic Philosophy, then you have no right to acquire or even apply for anything which could assist you to perform your legitimate duties, we wonder if he just descended from Jupiter. Obviously, these are the characters with very limited understanding of political philosophy. We can excuse Ken and the ilk for their narrow mindedness and little grasp of political ideology. What is a car or in general terms vehicles meant for? We hope that his illiterate educated brain could process this one and offer him a simple answer.

We pity such a journalistic moron for his simple-mindedness and pettiness. The essence of sharing in a political philosophy is to assist the policy-makers adhered to the tenets and for the communication outlets to convey the message. The basic impulse behind a political philosophy is to ensure that it bring a qualitative change in the lives of the people. If today, through the NDC’s broad-minded approach, the masses including the unrepentant NPP apologists could have access to vehicles, then the Social Democratic Ideology is firmly on course in dealing with welfare matters.

There is not a doubt that Kuranchie cannot stand the moral scrutiny when it comes to dubious and devious machinations to grab wealth at all cost. The Searchlight was set up through a kind of fraud on the NDC kingpins who assisted him to stand on his feet after Kofi Coomson gave him a kick in the butt. While his daily bread was denied him, it was an oil magnate and some politicians in the previous NDC government who mobilized resources to prop him up. At least, through the benevolence of these men Ken can now stand on his feet and blurt out hot air.

Unknown to the NDC mandarins, Ken has specialized in cutting corners to keep body and soul together. He has been vitiating the political landscape like a hungry wolf in search of prey. The predator that he is, Ken managed to hoodwink the NPP to believe that he believed in their cause. He was one of the few who started praising the NPP to high-heavens after the NDC lost the 2000 elections. Not quite long and typical of a prostitute, Ken had turned coat and saw everything good in the NPP. He described a senior journalist who was part of the GJA delegation to call on the then President J.A. Kufuor as a ‘creature’. It happened because this vermin was at the height of his journalistic idiocy and stupidity to the extent that those who shared alternative ideological viewpoints should not be allowed to be part of a body which is supposed to be paerisan.

Today, we thought that the few years of decent journalistic practice by Ken, when he somersaulted back into the camp of the NDC after exhausting the few crumbs thrown at him by the NPP would have ennobled and humbled him. At least if nobility confers too mush reverence and too high for Ken to identify with, some decency could do the trick. This was not to be as the stout defender of the NDC was again seen melting away like salt. He had undergone series of metamorphosis to the extent that one can hardly predict his next move in his quest to seek new friends in the political arena.

As for Ken, he swings faster than the pendulum and no wonder he played a political card in the 2004 elections by standing akimbo and collecting monies from both camps – a clever fox indeed. We salute him for this ingenuity even though it was a conscienceless act. He was the conduit of clandestine information flow to and from the NPP’s Kennedy Agyepong, the elixir who provided him with some financial comfort. Another anchor was the Don Kings in National Security at the time, whose free cash he found totally irresistible. While this was not enough, the unsuspecting NDC kingpins managing him were also doling out the scarce resources to him in order to shore up their media presence in the market. Ken was assessing documents meant for publication as part of the NDC’s communication strategy and using it as a bargaining chip to collect huge sums of money from National Security and Kennedy Agyepong.

With hindsight, it is unfortunate that the NDC kingpins did not realize that they were dealing with a nit-wit and half baked professional. Such sinister and sniveling characters have a way of surviving all regimes and building bridges across the divide. They do so by employing subterfuge, greed and producing cheap propaganda stuff for the consumption of the unsuspecting readers. We dare ask Ken whether his character could recognize his reputation if they should meet in the dark? It is sad that such dubious characters are acceptable in our society today but we wish to advise Ken and his Searchlight to grow out of pettiness.