His ‘No Human Beings In Volta’ Hate Speech

The man who said there are no human beings in the Volta region, Mr Kwabena Agyapong has lied about a hate speech he made against the people of the Volta region on Jarreth Metz’s film documentary, ‘An African Elections’ which exposed him making the despicable description of Voltarians at the Electoral Commission during the 2008 general.

Mr Kwabena Agyapong, a onetime spokesperson to President John Agyekum Kufuor, called into the Eko Sii Sein programme on Asempa FM, an Accra-based radio station on Monday to deny his own image and voice in the documentary of the 2008 elections, and insisted he said no such thing.

But The Catalyst can state on authority that the film proves exactly the contrary. Mr Kwabena Agyapong made a categorical statement in the documentary that there are no human beings in the Volta region, a statement which has attracted widespread condemnation since it became public knowledge on 31st December 2011, exactly three years after it was made. The former Presidential spokesperson, who is also a failed flagbearer contender of the NPP, made the call into the programme because according to him, he was prompted by some persons about a reference made by a panellist, National Democratic Congress’ (NDC) Felix Kwakye-Ofosu, to the distasteful description of the people of the Volta region by him in his submission. In our 9th January report, we stated that Mr Kwabena Agyapong, had said that the people of the Volta region are not human beings. He made the hate speech when he came under fire from National Democratic Congress (NDC) representatives in the Electoral Elections’ (EC) strong room after being caught red-handed for, what the NDC calls, conspiring with some others in the NPP to commit a gargantuan electoral fraud that nearly marred the 2008 elections and thrown the country into civil strife.

The hate-spewing Kwabena Agyapong has been exposed in a documentary of the 2008 elections by one Jarreth Merz, a film producer of Ghanaian parentage. The documentary, ‘An African Elections,’ gives vivid accounts of both public and behind-the-scenes happenings in the 2008 elections including the campaign trails of the NPP and NDC and activities of the EC including strong room processes and above all, the fierce clash that took place between the representatives of the two parties over some results from the Ashanti region that the NDC said were caused to be fraudulently changed by the NPP.

When Mr Kwabena Agyapong, a former NPP flag bearer aspirant who was an NPP rep in the strong room of the EC in the 2008 elections was confronted by NDC’s reps over the matter, he retorted, ‘We will challenge the figures from Volta. There are no human beings in the Volta region.’ The former spokesperson for former President Kufuor who was stating NPP’s position on figures from the Volta region said since there were no human beings in Volta region, his party was going to challenge the figures from that part of the country, an indication that to the NPP, the Volta region, conceivably, is full of animals who could not have been capable of producing impressive elections figures for the NDC that has earned the region its ‘NDC World Bank’ accolade. Interestingly, on Thursday 24th November 2011, Kwabena Agyapong pontificated on Metro TV’s Good Morning Ghana that the rich culture of Ghana is being destroyed by some junior ministers of the ruling NDC whose public pronouncements lack decorum. The vigilant NDC reps namely: Hon Rojo Mettle Nunoo, an aide to then NDC Candidate John Evans Atta Mills and now Deputy Minister of Health, Hon. Fifi Kwetey, then Propaganda Secretary of the NDC and now Deputy Minister of Finance, Hon. Kobby Acheampong, now Deputy Minister of the Interior and Dr Tony Aidoo, a leading member of the NDC and now in charge of Policy Monitoring &Evaluation at the Presidency and others stood tall when they combined forces to quash the clever EC strong room machinations by the Nana Akufo-Addo-led NPP in the second round of the 2008 presidential election.

The highly irresponsible comment dropped from the slippery lips of the NPP strongman when he came under fire from National Democratic Congress (NDC) representatives in the EC Strong Room, after he was caught in the act of smuggling falsifying results from some selected constituencies in Ashanti region into the EC’s system in a suspected connivance with some EC officials in the run-off, in order to give NPP’s Nana Akufo-Addo an undeserved second round win in the presidential election.

The Catalyst checks revealed that as at the time Mr Kwabena Agyapong and his then ruling party’s cover was blown at the EC strong room by the NDC reps, he and his collaborators had already succeeded in replacing results from three constituencies in Ashanti, which were already captured into the EC’s system but the faxed result sheets kept from the EC Chairman, Dr Afari Djan, with three more such fraudulent changes to be effected to make it a done deal. The paper found out that the idea of holding on to the faxed result sheets was for the NPP to buy time, and by their own internal calculation, know exactly how many votes it needed to fraudulently add to its national figure as at the time, in order to be able to steal the election for Nana Akufo-Addo. This is because by procedure, once the sheets were presented to the EC chairman, he would endorse the results and a declaration made and when that happens, nobody could be able to temper with or change the figures.

It was during the confrontation of him by the NDC reps that Mr Kwabena Agyapong singled out the people of the Volta region for a belligerent attack and brazenly poured venom on them in his hate speech. “We will challenge the figures from the Volta region. There are no human beings there,” he said with a straight face. There was a special premiering of ‘An African Elections’ publicly for the first time on Saturday 30th December 2011, at the International Conference Centre. This saw in attendance the producer of the film, Jarreth Merz who grew up in Ghana, Germany and Switzerland, some government officials, journalists and a cross section of the Ghanaian public who were there at the behest of the Ministry of Information.

But even with the hard core evidence against Mr Kwabena Agyapong in the award winning documentary, he still flagrantly denies his own words.