The world needs more people speaking truth to power – Nana Ama Agyemang Asante
When Nana Ama Agyemang Asante started speaking truth to power in her beloved country she underestimated the abuse that lied ahead just for having an opinion and speaking that opinion without fear or favour. She speaks to Inspiring Open’s Betty Kankam-Boadu on how she survived the abuse and why she has refused to be silent.
The media terrain in Ghana can sometimes be challenging, especially for women who practice journalism and ask tough questions.
Many have charted this path and quit. Others also started well, but have had to tone down on their strong views after bowing to both internal and external pressure, as well as abuse.
There’s, however, a third group that has simply refused to relent and that is where Nana Ama Agyemang Asante belongs. With over a decade’s experience in media, she has been there, seen it all, and done it all.
“I think once you have the platform, it’s a waste of a platform to have it and to censor yourself. It’s such a waste of that platform, of your life and of the voice, and of what you could do with it,” she intimated on the Inspiring Open podcast.
Nana Ama is a passionate journalist and is one of the few to have been privileged to work with the two biggest media outfits in Ghana – Joy FM and Citi FM. Becoming a media personality, though, was the last thing on her mind when she graduated from school.
As a student of economics and sociology, she had other ideas until she heard Matilda Asante speak on radio with drive and passion about issues bedeviling her country. Asante was speaking truth to power as host of a political show on Joy FM and her enthusiasm attracted Nana Ama.
“I didn’t know what, but I thought that whatever it was Matilda Asante was doing, this thing where she was holding people to account, asking them tough questions, and exposing them, was probably one of the ways to contribute and to make sure that life changed,” she recalls.
Eventually, Nana Ama got to work with Joy FM and with her mentor, Asante, before moving on to work with the Journalists for Human Rights (JHR), a Canadian non-profit organisation that focuses on good governance and human rights stories.
There, she rose to become the NGO’s country coordinator. Nana Ama says she ventured into journalism because she wanted to use her voice to effect change in the country. “If you look at Ghana, it’s really easy to feel hopeless,” she observed. “It’s arrogant to think you can save Ghana or one person can save Ghana, but I think we can sort of all of us put our shoulders to the wheel. And despite the pain and the disappointment, just do our tiny, tiny bit and maybe, at some point, we may get some change.”
Her journalism career may have started in 2012, but was not until a few years later, when she joined Citi FM that many Ghanaian started to take notice of her daring nature. Starting off as a sub-editor, she rose to become the only female voice on the radio station’s flagship morning show.
“My first year at Citi was strange,” said Nana Ama. “My first maybe six months were really strange for me. I say to people, I’m not a people person. I have to get to know you. And I suppose people have to get to know me to like me. But usually, after a few days, people like me, but somehow at Citi nobody liked me for a really long time.”
Nana Ama settled in well, though, and made a few friends along the way. But her tough-taking nature meant she was always a target of abuse. In a society where many have been raised to not ask questions, she was a different breed; one who never hesitated to speak truth to power.
And with that came constant abuse and disrespect. “Some of the things I was saying like… and then I am being trolled. And it’s just a whole day. I think people wake up and decide, ‘ah, we have to pick up where we left off because this woman is back on the radio’. I think a lot of the abuse was because I was talking about politicians some of the time. I was talking about powerful men in a way that Ghanaian women do not do openly.”
“It was a lot of you’re ugly. There was a period where… this is why my Instagram is locked, people went on my Facebook and Instagram and took my pictures. And I trended for three days because I said somebody’s response to an accusation was… I described the arguments as hollow. They were so triggered that she’s ugly, she’s… it was a lot. It was hard to take in.”
Nana Ama says, at some point, all the abuse she received online led her into depression and she even had to see a doctor to help her get over it.
A fellow of the Reuters Institute of Journalism at the University of Oxford and the National Endowment for Democracy in Washington DC, Nana Ama currently studies religion, with a focus on Christianity.
She believes although most journalists work in newsrooms, they do not have a voice. This, she attributes to politicians and powerful people owning the majority of media houses and, therefore, dictating what can and cannot be said on their platforms.
Despite all the ups and downs, Nana Ama is an advocate of openness. “I think, for me, coming from the background that I come from, I think it’s just being transparent and being inclusive.
“These things mean a lot to me. I think to be open is to share, to share is to be transparent… I think being open for me in life is being generous and loving with my community.”
Nana Ama continues to pay the price for speaking truth to power but that doesn’t deter her from holding people in leadership to account. And she hopes that the next generation of women will have it easier than she did.
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