Stop stealing monikers and using them in unprovoked harassment of others!

By Francis Kwarteng

It should be clear to those who visit Ghanaweb by now—especially the Feature/Opinion page—that some cowardly, unscrupulous persons are in the habit of stealing some columnists’ monikers and names to promote their ethnocentric agenda as well as to create public disaffection for those columnists whose virtual identities they steal.

This author, Francis Kwarteng, and his friends Andy C.Y. Kwawukume and Prof Lungu and Dr. Michael Bokor, have notably been at the receiving of habitual virtual impersonation in the past few weeks.

Why are some in the habit of stealing monikers and names to harass others?

Well, one theory for this habitual virtual impersonation probably stems from the fact that these impersonators are uncomfortable with the educated, well-informed ideas of the afore-referenced names and therefore hoping to neutralize the pronounced presence of these corpus of writings on Ghanaweb, these shameless ethnocentric, childish and largely uninformed impersonators have resorted to doing everything in their power to contaminate these rich writings with their crude ignorance about issues.

The other theory could point to the mental and emotional instability of these truanting impersonators, or to the fact that they are school children new to the phenomenon of social media and computers.

These school children, who are incapable of serious, independent thought and ideational condensation, essentially have taken to social media as a playground or a candy store where they ply their trade in virtual vagabondage.

It is, therefore, unpardonable that the parents of these school children will shirk their responsibility of effectively monitoring the wayward behavior of these nauseous urchins on social media.

But their intimidating posturing is also turning out to be their undoing, a fact lost on them.

In other words their tactical approach to creating public disaffection for the general readership of Ghanaweb, particularly where the dedicated readers of Prof Lungu and Andy-K and Francis Kwarteng and Dr. Michael Bokor are concerned, has become counterproductive in that those columnists, aforementioned, under whose articles these urchins appear with their corpus of childish comments and rants are able to see through their shenanigans.

One particular impersonator is fond of appearing on Ghanaweb under this author’s name, Francis Kwarteng, and signing off his rabid ethnocentric rants and insults by including this author’s email address just to create an aura of virtual authenticity to deceive other commentators. This lame, frustrated attempt to create public disaffection for this author will neither wash with us nor with our core dedicated readership.

That is, we take strong exception to our email address being attached to these phony comments. These online-trolling milquetoasts are enemies of progress whose place is the dustbin of controlled chaos.

Unfortunately, the editors at Ghanaweb are not doing enough to rein in these milquetoasts known for their pell-mell intrusions into important matters of public discourse and policy. This does not augur well for promoting intellectual decency in the public space.

The editors need to wake up and do something about this problem, since some of the comments these virtual truants make threaten the very foundation of poly-ethnic amity. Which is to say, our unitary country does not deserve this.

Still, it appears not have dawned on these uninformed, clueless urchins that their virtual impersonating of columnists will not succeed in turning away this author, Dr. Michael Bokor, Prof Lungu, and Andy-K from their ossified philosophical, ideological and political convictions.

Against this backdrop, we shall implore all those Ghanaweb columnists and commentators under whose writings these impersonators appear to ignore their virtual presence, their ethnocentric insults, harassment, and rants.

For, it will be highly unthinkable for anyone who is intimately or deeply familiar with this columnist’s unique writer identity and linguistic fingerprint to, as matter of fact, associate his virtual profile and wide-ranging philosophical, political convictions with those of these asocial, parochial truants on social media.

After all, those who follow us on all the major Ghana-based web portals where we publish regularly and happen to also closely read our articles know we do not promote one ethnic group or culture above others, for these followers intimately know that we have always made social inclusion, gender equity, ethnic and racial equality the running threads of our philosophical worldview.

Perhaps, most significantly, the general readership of Ghanaweb should have known by now that we uncompromisingly eschew extreme political partisanship, ethnocentrism, racism, destructive engagement, and unproductive intolerance insofar as rhetorical engagement and public discourse go!

Let us therefore learn to respect and tolerate each other’s opinion even where we vehemently disagree.

“Agreeing to disagree” is probably more important today than ever!

Thank you!

We shall return…