NMC Executive Secretary, George Sarpong.
The Executive Secretary of the National Media Commission (NMC), George Sarpong, has urged the media to desist from creating the impression that there are high stakes in the up-coming general election.
He said in every election, the question of whether or not the country is going to have difficulty is determined by the degree of grievances immediately preceding the elections.
“In 2016 by now we were still in court over the electoral register, but as we stand now, there are no major substantive issues the political parties are fighting over,” he said, adding, “Working on elections in Africa in the last 20 years, anybody who understands election should tell you the truth that this is the easiest election Ghana has to organise.”
Mr Sarpong, therefore, cautioned the media against creating a sense of danger when there is none, adding that, such undue pressure from the media will make it lose its sense of judgment towards the election.
“The more we communicate danger to the people, the more we create the reality of danger. If we mislead people into thinking that this is a dangerous election, everybody begins to prepare themselves by arming themselves against each other, and this can get to a point where we would eventually explode.
“So the real danger in this election is the complete lack of understanding with which we are approaching it and claiming that it is a very serious election,” he added.
New Software
Mr Sarpong was speaking at the launch of the new software for election incidence capturing, media monitoring, fake news and disinformation analysis by the NMC in Accra.
The Election Watch App developed by Softmasters Company Limited for the Commission will allow users who sign up to the platform to take photos or video of incidents imprinted with date, time and GPS of location, record audio of discussions, locate or obtain direction to polling stations or location of interest.
It will further allow users to make a call and send incident alert with GPS to monitoring or control centres which will then be analyzed by stakeholders.
Mr. Sarpong, commenting on the new platform, said the technology will benefit members of the Ghana Journalist Association(GJA) in substantial ways. “We therefore invite your members to have a discussion on how we can include and sign them onto the platform and to enable them deploy the system during the upcoming Presidential and Parliamentary elections,” he said.
The App will be officially launched three weeks before the election, and will be available on Google Store and IOS for people who register.
By Jamila Akweley Okertchiri