{"id":101877,"date":"2025-11-04T10:52:35","date_gmt":"2025-11-04T10:52:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=101877"},"modified":"2025-11-04T10:52:35","modified_gmt":"2025-11-04T10:52:35","slug":"ken-ashigbey-manasseh-the-mosquito-brigade-when-truth-wears-handcuffs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=101877","title":{"rendered":"
Ken Ashigbey, Manasseh & the Mosquito Brigade: When truth wears handcuffs<\/div>"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n \t<\/i> Read Time:<\/span>2 Minute, 55 Second <\/div>\n\n <\/div>
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Republic of Uncommon Sense Chronicles<\/p>\n

\u201cIn Ghana, truth is treated like a mosquito: annoying, unwelcome, yet strangely necessary.\u201d<\/p>\n

There was a time, my friends, when truth was cheap. Now it costs your peace of mind, your job, and sometimes your windscreen. These days, anyone who dares to speak it is treated like a buzzing mosquito \u2014 everyone wants you dead, but everyone needs the bite.<\/p>\n

Ghana loves truth the way some men love salad: as decoration beside the jollof. We clap for prophets who shout \u201cFire!\u201d in church, but hiss at journalists who shout \u201cCorruption!\u201d on TV. Hypocrisy, my countrymen, is now a patriotic duty.<\/p>\n

Take Manasseh Azure Awuni, the nation\u2019s most persistent troublemaker. He digs through filth like a man who believes heaven is hidden under a dustbin. When he published The Contract for Sale, half the nation fainted; the other half asked, \u201cWho sent him?\u201d Instead of thanking him for unclogging the national drain, politicians accused him of bathing in it.<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s Erastus Asare Donkor, the reporter who filmed Ghana\u2019s rivers crying for help. The galamsey boys, bless their biceps, mistook him for a punching bag. They beat him for showing us what we refused to see\u2014that we\u2019ve turned our water into mercury cocktails and called it \u2018mineral water.\u2019<\/p>\n

And Ken Ashigbey? The man has lungs built for protest. If rivers could vote, he\u2019d be president by now. He has marched, preached, and shouted himself hoarse trying to rescue our rivers. But in Ghana, speaking sense is a high-risk hobby. One chief reportedly warned him, \u201cMy son, let the river die in peace.\u201d Imagine that\u2014funeral rites for water!<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the airwaves are crawling with a new species: Homo Serialcallerius Politicus. They survive on mobile credit and misplaced confidence. You\u2019ll know them by their mating call\u2014\u201cGood morning, my brother, let me land!\u201d\u2014usually followed by a crash landing in ignorance.<\/p>\n

Our radio stations have become Parliament without rules and with more shouting. By the time the host cries, \u201cWe\u2019ll be right back after this commercial break,\u201d the truth is already in the morgue. If Plato were Ghanaian, he\u2019d have written The Republic of Noise.<\/p>\n

But the real tragedy is not the noise itself\u2014it\u2019s our addiction to it. We treat the serial caller as national entertainer and the truth-teller as national nuisance. We hand microphones to parrots and handcuffs to prophets. Meanwhile, the rivers choke, the forests weep, and our conscience is on life support.<\/p>\n

The elders warned us long ago: \u201cIf you hide your sore, the flies will educate you.\u201d Ghana has hidden her sores under party colours, and now the flies are running evening classes in corruption. We call galamsey a political argument, when it\u2019s really the obituary of our rivers.<\/p>\n

Ken still shouts. Manasseh still writes. Erastus still films. And the serial callers? They still call. Same noise, new ringtone. The stage sinks, but the drama continues.<\/p>\n

So here\u2019s your weekend prescription from The Republic of Uncommon Sense:
Take one tablet of Common Sense with a full glass of Truth, three times daily. Side effects include honesty, accountability, and uncontrollable urges to shut up.<\/p>\n

And before you call that radio station tomorrow morning to defend your party, ask yourself: When the last river dries up, will your party card fetch you water?<\/p>\n

Jimmy Aglah is a media executive, author and satirist behind The Republic of Uncommon Sense chronicles.<\/p>\n

TruthTellersGhana #MediaCourage #AntiGalamsey #SerialCallersExposed #RepublicOfUncommonSense<\/h1>\n<\/div>\n
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\"Ken“In Ghana, truth is treated like a mosquito: annoying, unwelcome, yet strangely necessary.”<\/p>\n

There was a time, my friends, when truth was cheap. Now it costs your peace of mind, your job, and sometimes your windscreen. These days, anyone who dares to speak it is treated like a buzzing mosquito \u2014 everyone wants you dead, but everyone needs the bite.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_2277560469115098_106292521332774":"","twitter_aToxNzczMzI3Njk4OTg4ODUxMjAxOw==_1773327698988851200":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2128,1246,11859,1883,10,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-101877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hp-opinion-1","category-ken-ashigbey","category-manasseh","category-national","category-politics","category-popular"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101877","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=101877"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101877\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=101877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=101877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=101877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}