How many still-born babies have celebrated their 25th posthumous birthday?

The norm is, a baby born still or almost so, is not to be celebrated, unless they bore irrepressible joy and undimmable light in their sojourn through their unbearably ephemeral life.

Courtesy: Jimmy Dean // Unsplash

The above has been the case of Radio Eye, Ghana’s first ever private radio station, which, by the way, reared its head, not as a legitimate child, but as a rude awakening to the “powers that be”, only to go back to sleep after sixteen days.

In the riveting masterpiece that is ‘Plenty talk Dey 4 GHANA: RADIO EYE, PLURAL BROADCASTING & DEMOCRACY’, the extraordinary brilliance of Akpabli shines through as he weaves a tale of poignant and immersive historical facts with two adroit interviews – the first with the first man to have shown fists for a fight with the government of Ghana for a pluralistic media for the people of a nation coming of age in the wake of a new constitutional regime; and the second with the man who took after the first man in not only establishing, but cementing plural broadcasting in the country – as well as six articles from scholars and practitioners of media, language and law; a collection of speeches, published newspaper articles that speak to the Radio Eye awakening; and a treasure trove of documentary information on Ghana’s vibrant pluralist media landscape.

In this captivating read, the reader is impelled to think of how the country’s democracy would have survived about twenty-eight years ago if Radio Eye had not been established. While some legal scholars have attributed the longevity of the 1992 Constitution to the offence of high treason – the penalty of which is death – imposed under Article 3(3), it may be worth considering, also, that Radio Eye could be the reason the Fourth Republic has not experienced any military or other insurgence.

The reason the Constitution, with all its flaws and shortcomings, has enjoyed this much stability, may be because of the birth of Radio Eye. The existence of other broadcasting houses (besides the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation) makes it impossible for any military government to announce itself to the Ghanaian public. It is unjust that Ghana’s democracy be mentioned (even in legal circles) without a mention of the country’s encounter with private media through Radio Eye.
In his interview, the founder of Radio Eye, Dr Charles Wereko-Brobbey, stated unequivocally, that the main reason for the establishment of Radio Eye was to cement democracy into the governance of Ghana. It was mainly to prevent coup d’états and the revolutions associated with monopolistic state media.
The almost inherent nature of the African to want to ‘rule’ over his fellow African is a sad reality and comes to play quite often in the book. The lie peddled by the then regulating body, for example, that international telecommunication rules allowed for only four private radio stations to operate, speaks to this fact.

The birth of Radio Eye was to make nonsense of Section 2b of the Telecommunications (Frequency and Control Board) Decree 1977, which sought to “approve and issue licenses to commercial and amateur radio operators” (page 42).
While this decree had been passed seventeen years prior and was to be in clear contravention of Article 162(3) of the 1992 Constitution which expressly provides that an operator of a private media shall not be required by any law to obtain license as a prerequisite to the establishment of any print, mass or other media, the citizenry had been silenced by compulsion, or was silent by choice.

This had reduced the media to what Gadzekpo (2007) describes an “ineffectual watchdog”, thereby rendering the sword of Lady Justice blunt. The law had been passed, but was in the end toothless.
Whereas the National Communications Authority Act 1996 (Act 524) came to obliterate the obsolete Frequency Registration and Control Board set up by the Supreme Military Council in 1977, it is in practice, unable to develop a cogent legal framework to control what the country has today as media pluralism. The NCA is also unable to act independently because it is an agency of the Executive.
One other fascinating thing about Akpabli’s masterpiece is how the scholars distinguish media pluralism from media diversity.

The case of the Ghanaian media landscape at present, is not a pluralistic media, but a diverse one. It is noteworthy that media diversity isn’t the same as media pluralism. Whereas the latter, according to Karikari (1993), is not merely about the numbers, but about representation through variety, difference, contrariety and divergence, which are not merely permitted, allowed and tolerated, but encouraged, the former only focuses on the numbers. Even though everyone seems to be speaking with divergent and dissenting opinions, these are not the hallmark of a diverse media.
In conclusion, like the name suggests, the Radio Eye story does not only open one’s eye to a deeper knowledge about the history of pluralistic media and democracy in Ghana; it does, more importantly, teach the reader that one doesn’t need live a hundred years to make an impact, for even though the lifespan of Radio Eye was fleeting, like gushing waters, the radio station was also like a butterfly that warms itself toward the light. Like its wingspan, its impact, was vast, and made, in just sixteen days, all the difference a nation coming of age in the wake of a new constitutional regime needed.
This book comes highly recommended to anyone who seeks to expand their knowledge about the rich history of Ghana’s media with a read that is as much intellectually stimulating as it is fascinating.
Five Stars for this masterful exposition Ghana’s rich media history!