The host of Asempa FM's Ekosiisen has urged the general public, especially political actors to stop creating an impression as though the media in the country is biased towards a particular political party.

Philip Osei Bonsu, popularly known in the media space as O.B says calling the journalism profession to question based on mere speculations and rumour does not augur well for the country's democracy.

"I think we should go beyond some of these things and know that elections come and go and journalists will remain in here and do the work the Constitution mandates us to do.

"And I don't think it's fair for people to call our profession into question based on mere rumours, people's own feelings, and idiosyncrasy," he said.

The comment comes on the back of various election rigging allegations leveled against the media following the declaration of the 2020 presidential and parliamentary election results.

Presidential Candidate for the NDC, John Dramani Mahama has opposed the EC’s declaration of President Akufo-Addo as the winner of the just-ended presidential elections on the basis that the election was “fictitious and flawed.”

He has further filed a case at the Supreme Court to challenge the results as declared by the EC.

Staunch members of the opposition NDC at various press conferences have also expressed disappointment and have accused the media of liaising with the Electoral Commission (EC) to overturn the results of the December 7 polls.

Reacting to the allegations, Mr. Osei Bonsu stated that although these allegations are leveled every year, it is worse with the December 7, 2020 polls.

"It happened in 2004, 2008, 2012, 2016 and 2020 so it's really no news to some of us because depending on who is in power, and who as it were is the beneficiary of the calls we make related to the elections, you find the person on the losing end coming with all sort of allegations.

"But maybe the levels it went this year were a bit frightening," he said.

He further referenced a statement made during a press conference addressed by the General Secretary of the NDC, Johnson Asiedu Nketia and said the comments were uncalled for.

"Of course I recall a press conference we took live on Ekosiisen addressed by the general secretary of the NDC and that was when he  made reference to a sentence that 'bullets don't discriminate' and that statement came immediately after he criticised the media and mentioned names of radio stations who called the elections and all of that, that I thought was unfortunate," he said.

"And it feeds into a perception that 'these people [journalists] are responsible for our [the NDC's] loss' and it doesn't really send the right signals.

"We don't do what we do based on inducement from any quarters. We've been fed with the facts from day 1 and at the end of the day, the results we put out which we stated were provisional results were corroborated by results from CODEO, by the EC itself, and by almost all the independent observers who observed this particular election," he added. 

Regardless of the threats, Mr Osei Bonsu assured that journalists will continue to execute their constitutionally mandated duties with all the professionalism it requires.

"A lot of investments are made into elections and after all of the investments, people would want to rubbish everything you've done based on mere rumours. It hurts a lot.

"So I think going forward we should come to a realisation that we are professional Journalists; of course, we would not claim perfection but we would try as much as possible to do what the Constitution mandates us to do; to be fair, to be firm and to be objective," he added.