Salman Rushdie once wrote; “What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist.” And misattributed to Voltaire, Hall also said in ‘The Friends of Voltaire’; “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
The above statements roughly summarise the position of Freedom of Speech in many jurisdictions including Ghana and more importantly, they capture the fact that, the true essence of Free Speech is the right to be offensive.
Of course, but for the right to be offensive, there wouldn’t be any pressing constitutional need to have Freedom of Expression safeguarded. No one is going to be upset or punch your face for merely saying what the person deems pleasant, but because the law wants us to be able to somewhat hurt the feelings of others with our words, Free Speech has a robust constitutional backing.
Ghana has been plunged into a party mood and as expected, it sometimes gets chaotic when the intoxication of excitement is high, especially when those celebrating have been fighting a tough battle for many years to arrive at their achievement.
The ‘insane’ partying must go on for the many NPP supporters whose presidential candidate-Nana Akufo Addo has beaten the ‘arrogant dead goat’ to win  the 2016 elections. These people must be able to, in the spirit of Free Speech, hurt the feelings of others with their words if it reasonably adds any layer of substance to their celebration.
I should be able to freely say, “John Dumelo is an idiot for supporting an incompetent government and I am glad he now knows his smoothness level.” This may hurt the feelings of John Dumelo, yet I am legally permitted to say so.
Despite the constitutional protection of individuals to be able to hurt the feelings of others or to be offensive to others, it should be understood that one’s right to be offensive in Ghana is not absolute and therefore it’s an illusion to think that you have absolute right to say whatever comes into your head. There are rules to limit what can be said.
We must all cherish a right to speak our minds even if others find it offensive but we must also remember that there are laws against incitement of hatred and violence, threats and libel.
It’s fun to tease a loser, especially when this person was damn sure he was going to win and it doesn’t matter if what you say hurts the feeling of this loser. However, you cannot incite hatred against a person, threaten another or be libelous under the cloak of Free Speech—that’s illegal.
We’ve heard reports of some NPP supporters trolling popular NDC celebrities on social media—to me, this is hilarious and perfectly acceptable, provided it’s done with reasonable care.
Nevertheless, any form of physical attack or hiding behind party politics to incite violence or hatred against another Ghanaian is unlawful and those NPP supporters at the head of these illegalities ought to stop immediately or be arrested.
Pathetically, several reports of Ghanaians said to be NPP supporters causing criminal damage to NDC properties such as billboards have emerged. This is insane and a violation of the laws of Ghana.
It falls within the constitutional rights of NPP supporters to be offensive to NDC supporters to some extent and it’s also their right to celebrate their victory for as long as they want. But it’s an offense to physically attack any NDC supporter or to incite violence or hatred or be libelous.

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