The conviction and one-year sentence imposed on a TikToker for insulting the president should concern everyone committed to constitutional democracy.

The issue is not whether the speech was vulgar, irresponsible, or false. It was all three. It was also the kind of speech that adds nothing of value to public discourse and deserves widespread condemnation.

The real question, however, is whether speech of this nature should attract criminal prosecution in a constitutional democracy.

GOGO believes it should not.

A democracy cannot prosecute its way to civility. Criminal courts should not become arbiters of taste, manners, or political discourse.

Public officials, especially the president, must expect criticism, ridicule, exaggeration, and even offensive speech as part of the price of holding public office.

Fortunately, the President, with his Vandal DNA, knows how to shrug off such noise. That is precisely the disposition a constitutional democracy expects of those who occupy its highest offices.

Public office demands broad shoulders, not broad criminal statutes. The criminal law should not be called upon to vindicate bruised feelings or wounded egos.

The appropriate response to bad speech is more speech, public condemnation, and social accountability, not imprisonment.

Many of us have been the targets of relentless insults, falsehoods, and vulgar attacks over the years. They have often been unfair, offensive, and deeply personal.

Yet we do not believe that those responsible should be prosecuted or imprisoned for speaking. Freedom of expression is tested not by the speech we applaud, but by the speech we detest.

Our deeper problem is not that such incivility exists. Every society has its share of offensive voices. Our problem is the collapse of the civic standards that should discourage such conduct and deny it legitimacy.

We did not arrive here overnight. For years, we have steadily lowered the standards of public discourse. We have confused freedom with license, criticism with abuse, and courage with insult.

Increasingly, public interventions are judged not by their truth, wisdom, or substance, but by how loudly they offend and how quickly they go viral.

Our institutions have not been innocent.

Political parties have excused indecency whenever it serves partisan interests. Sections of the media have monetized outrage because outrage attracts audiences. Social media platforms reward provocation over reason.

Even some religious leaders have abandoned the moral example expected of them, using their pulpits to inflame passions rather than elevate public discourse.

Citizens, too, have become willing consumers of this degradation, rewarding those who generate the greatest controversy with the greatest attention.

The result is a vicious cycle. The more outrageous the conduct, the greater the visibility. The greater the visibility, the greater the influence. Before long, notoriety is mistaken for leadership, vulgarity for authenticity, and insult for courage.

When civic standards collapse, there is an understandable temptation to call upon the criminal law to restore order.

But that temptation is misplaced. The criminal law cannot repair what civic culture has allowed to decay. It can punish crimes. It cannot manufacture virtue.

The proper cure is in the hands of society. It is society, not the criminal law, which must intervene.

The appropriate sanction for those who deliberately degrade public discourse is ostracism. Stop sharing their content. Stop inviting them onto public platforms. Stop rewarding outrage with attention, influence, and money.

A mature society denies civic misfits the recognition they seek. It isolates those who consistently debase public conversation instead of turning them into celebrities or folk heroes.

What Must Change?

If we genuinely desire a more civil Republic, we must begin where civic character is formed.

Schools should teach constitutional citizenship, media literacy, and the ethics of respectful disagreement.

Families should cultivate respect without demanding conformity. Religious institutions, traditional authorities, civil society organizations, and the media should celebrate substance over spectacle and reason over sensationalism.

Citizens should refuse to glorify conduct that would be unacceptable in any serious civic forum.

Political parties bear an even greater responsibility. They should never recruit, celebrate, or promote those whose public profile is built on abuse, vulgarity, or calculated disrespect for others.

Such individuals should not hold executive positions within political parties. They should not be featured on campaign platforms, rewarded with appointments, or embraced by party leaders simply because they attack political opponents.

Leadership is measured not only by those a party elects, but also by those it refuses to elevate. Every time a political party rewards indecency for partisan advantage, it lowers the civic standards of the Republic.

A Republic that relies on the police, prosecutors, and prisons to enforce civility has already failed to cultivate it through families, schools, political parties, religious institutions, and civic leadership.

The time has also come to cleanse our statute books of colonial-era offences that criminalize expression rather than genuine harm.

A constitutional democracy should not preserve laws enacted to shield rulers from insult or suppress dissent.

Parliament should review and repeal these vestiges of colonial legislation so that our laws reflect the values of the 1992 Constitution rather than the anxieties of colonial administration.

Law enforcement must likewise be retrained to distinguish genuine crimes from offensive speech. Police resources should be devoted to combating corruption, looting, violent crime, organized crime, fraud, cybercrime, and other conduct that threatens public safety and the rule of law, not policing insults or wounded egos.

The measure of a professional police service is not how quickly it responds to offensive speech, but how effectively it protects citizens from real crime.

The judiciary, too, has a constitutional duty. Courts must remain vigilant in giving primacy to the Constitution, particularly its guarantee of freedom of expression.

They should ensure that criminal sanctions are reserved for conduct that the Constitution clearly permits the State to punish. Courts exist to safeguard constitutional liberty, not to enforce civility through imprisonment.

Respect for public office does not require immunity from criticism. The dignity of public office is best preserved by the quality of those who occupy it, the integrity of the institutions they lead, and the confidence they inspire, not by imprisoning those who speak offensively about them.

The State should punish crime. Society should punish incivility. Political parties should refuse to reward it.

The Constitution should protect the freedom to speak, even when society condemns what is said.

That is how constitutional democracies cultivate both liberty and civility.

PS: Yɛde post no bɛto hɔ. Yɛnyɛ comprehension consultants.

Da Yie!