Ghana’s “Ghana Jollof” saga has opened a dangerous but necessary conversation: where does fearless political commentary end and unlawful conduct begin?
That question matters because history teaches us that the media can be a formidable weapon against tyranny. In the Philippines, Radio Veritas played a crucial role in informing and mobilising citizens during the 1986 People Power Revolution against Ferdinand Marcos’ dictatorship.
UNESCO describes the radio broadcasts as having helped document and influence the peaceful overthrow of an entrenched dictatorship. In Egypt, digital activism around the “We Are All Khaled Said” Facebook page helped expose abuses under Hosni Mubarak and mobilise citizens ahead of the 2011 uprising.
The lesson is profound; when power becomes deaf to the people, the microphone becomes a weapon of accountability.
But there is another lesson. A microphone does not turn falsehood into truth, insults into journalism or threats into activism.
That is why the Ghana Jollof case deserves scrutiny without emotions. The Police say Barbara Asantewaa Kodua, known as “Ghana Jollof”, operated an account that published offensive and inciteful material and allegedly made a false claim about a near coup at Jubilee House.
Police have also alleged that Techiman-based nurse Salomey Awiti Baffoe helped recruit people to redistribute the content and that forensic examination of phones and mobile-money records revealed financial transactions involving the network and alleged sponsors. Mrs. Baffoe has pleaded not guilty.
These are allegations, not convictions. And that distinction must remain sacred.
But it also leaves Ghana with questions that cannot be shouted away: Who created the content? Who financed it? Who distributed it? Who benefited from its reach? What exactly was claimed? What evidence does the Police possess? And, most importantly, what does Ghanaian law actually criminalise?
Section 208 of the Criminal Offences Act, 1960 criminalises publishing or reproducing a statement, rumour or report that is likely to cause public fear or alarm or disturb public peace, where the publisher knows or has reason to believe it is false. Section 207 also addresses threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour likely to provoke a breach of the peace.
But Ghana has no criminal defamation law; criminal libel was repealed in 2001. Defamation is principally a civil matter. That distinction is essential. A politician being insulted is not automatically a crime. A journalist being rude is not automatically a crime. Government being embarrassed is certainly not a crime.
And this is where the conversation about Kevin Taylor and With All Due Respect becomes unavoidable.
Taylor has built an influential political-media platform that has often been fiercely critical of the opposition New Patriotic Party and public officials. Many people, however, have also expressed concern about the programme’s use of insults, personal attacks and allegations.
These concerns are not merely theoretical. In 2020, the Accra High Court awarded Ace Ankomah GH¢2.95 million in damages in a defamation case against Taylor and Loud Silence Media and ordered, among other things, an injunction against further defamatory publication. Public concerns have also been raised about the aggressive nature of some of his commentary.
Yet here is the uncomfortable truth: we cannot defend press freedom only when the microphone is singing our song.
The same constitutional freedom that protects a journalist exposing corruption protects the political commentator whose views we detest.
Article 162 of the 1992 Constitution guarantees the freedom and independence of the media, while also recognising lawful restrictions reasonably required for national security, public order and the protection of the rights and reputations of others.
So, yes, condemn vulgarity. Condemn personal humiliation. Condemn threats. Condemn deliberate lies. Condemn incitement. But do not confuse offence with criminality.
Ghanaian political culture has always accommodated sharp disagreement, but the open vulgarity now common in some corners of social media is alien to the restraint traditionally expected in our public discourse. Our elders say, “When two elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers.”
When politicians, influencers and media personalities turn public discourse into a battlefield of insults, it is the credibility of democracy that gets trampled.
President Mahama is therefore right to recognise that the new media has unique challenges and that Ghana must rethink how it responds. He has called on the MFWA and GJA to convene a national stakeholder forum to determine how TikTok and other platforms should be regulated while protecting legitimate criticism, satire and dissent.
That proposal deserves applause, not because government should be given a bigger stick, but because the stick itself needs rules.
The answer cannot be to arrest everyone who insults a president. Nor can it be to give content creators a digital licence to destroy reputations, manufacture panic and hide behind “activism”. Because, when we demand liberty without accepting accountability, we mimic a river without banks, destined to overflow and ruin the very soil we intended to cultivate.
The September 30 hearing involving Salomey Awiti Baffoe has now been pushed to October 5 because of the ongoing Association of Judges and Magistrates Conference. That means Mrs. Baffoe, who has pleaded not guilty, will remain behind bars after the High Court refused her bail on September 24, citing the risk of witness interference and ongoing cyber investigations.
But how long must an accused person remain in custody before the State proves its case? Mrs. Baffoe has not been convicted. Yet every adjournment adds another day to her detention, turning the presumption of innocence into something that increasingly exists only on paper. The court directed the Republic to expedite its investigations; it should also be prepared to demand accountability for every additional delay.
If the Police have the financial records, communications, distribution trails and content evidence they say they have, Ghana deserves to see those allegations properly tested in court, not an open-ended process in which detention becomes a substitute for prosecution.
The judiciary must not allow the machinery of justice to become a machinery of prolonged punishment before conviction. If the evidence establishes the alleged offences, let the law take its course. If it does not, Mrs. Baffoe must be freed.
A democracy cannot claim to respect liberty while an unconvicted citizen remains in custody as the State continues to investigate. The courts must protect the public, yes, but they must also protect the accused from the State. Justice delayed is troubling. Freedom denied without conviction is a crisis.
In 1839, Edward Bulwer-Lytton famously wrote that “the pen is mightier than the sword.” In 2026, the pen has become a phone, the newsroom has become a TikTok account, and the audience has become millions.
That makes the new microphone more powerful than ever.
And power, whether wielded by a government, journalist, activist or TikToker, must answer to truth, responsibility and the law.
