Presiding Archbishop and General Overseer of Action Chapel International (ACI), Nicholas Duncan-Williams has called for legislation to curb rumour-mongering in Ghanaian society.
According to him, President Kwame Nkrumah enacted a law that held people responsible for everything they said and were jailed if what they claimed was untrue.
The Archbishop argued that the time and the opportunity offered by social media platforms for people to make wild claims against others demand a similar law to be passed.
He said, “During Dr Nkrumah’s era if you said something and you were investigated and it was not true, you would be jailed.”
“We need that kind of law again because there is too much ‘Yɛ sii Yɛ sii’, ‘Akɛɛ Akɛɛ’, and people are living their lives based on rumours and judging people based on what they have heard.”
“Especially in this age of social media where everything is true and where everything is speculated all around and people live their lives always trying to find out what is in the news. What is new, what’s going on.”
Archbishop Duncan-Williams made the call during a sermon on Sunday, April 3, 2022, and indicated the present generation is a social media one where people virtually live on Whatsapp and Youtube checking out others, what they are doing and talking about.
“Some are googling me right now! Yeah, instead of them listening to what I say they are on their phone, they’re checking me out and checking out everything I’m saying.”
“They check you out and want to deal with you based on Google… But Mr. Google can never tell you the outcome of your circumstances,” he stated.
He noted that the most important thing in life is not to go around telling people whether they like you or not but the key is awareness.
People, he said, need to strategize how to deal with others and not to be quick to react because that is a sign of fear and immaturity.
Archbishop Duncan-Williams argued that Ghana’s problem and the decay that is eating into the fabric of its society is partly caused by the western democracy that it has adopted.
According to him, western democracy accommodates too many demands of freedoms for people to do as they please without being held responsible.
He said, “In western democracy, people insult their leaders and everyone and throw stones at just everybody else and still go home free to sleep.
Such misbehaviours, he said, do not happen in China and other places because those who will engage in them will be silenced.
Source: Mypublisher24.com