Head of Policy Monitoring and Evaluation at the Presidency, Dr. Tony Aidoo, has issued an edict that he should never be paired with the General Secretary of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Lawyer Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie affectionately called Sir John on the same platform to articulate their views on issues of national concern.
A clearly riled Dr Aidoo, claims he was rendered a great disservice by Alhassan Suhuyini, host of the Gold Paper Review on Radio Gold, when his (Tony Aidoo’s) opinion was solicited alongside that of the NPP General Secretary on the same platform.
“Sir John and I cannot possibly communicate…, we are not on the same wave length. We are dealing at entirely different levels of articulation of the issues and therefore there are times when it is important to match oranges with oranges and apples to apples,” an angry Tony Aidoo pontificated.
The premise of the former Deputy Defence Minister’s grouse, centered on a raucous argument which broke out between the host of the show and Sir John when he (Sir John) claimed that the gas pipe line began operations during the era of ex-president Kufuor.
When his views were solicited on the issue, Dr Tony Aidoo described the NPP Chief Scribe as someone with an unbridled penchant of “rumbling on and on” without acknowledging the facts on the grounds even when his attention is draw to it.
In apparent reference to the lively exchange between President John Mahama and Nana Akufo-Addo at the recently held Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA'S) Presidential Debate on the cost of training Ghanaian doctors in Cuba, where the president accused the opposition leader of conjuring figures, insisting that the correct amount spent on training each doctor was $5,000 and not the GH¢105,000, Dr Tony Aidoo accused the NPP flagbearer of emulating the communication skills of Sir John and lying through his teeth when the facts differed.