By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Garden City, New York
April 23, 2015
E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net

Ghana is a democratic market economy, and so the notion that, somehow, some nondescript species of animal called "loyalty" ought to preclude Nana Akufo-Addo from making decisions and choices based on self-interest and common sense is inexcusably absurd. However, when such accusation of disloyalty on the part of the three-time Presidential Candidate of the main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) comes from the irredeemably trashy Informer newspaper, then, of course, at best it ought to be taken with a pinch of salt (See "Akufo-Addo Accused [Of] Betrayal" Ghanaweb.com 4/22/15).

There may, however, be some truth in the details, when one also reckons the fact that both yours truly and Nana Akufo-Addo are known to be consanguineal - or blood relatives - of Mr. Kwasi Twum, the proprietor of the Multi-Media Group, parent company of Joy-Fm. I must also hasten to add that I have never met the man, although I had the occasion nearly twenty years ago to be featured on Joy-Fm Radio. Back in those days, the country's then-foremost privately owned radio station fairly and objectively reflected on its staff a cross-section of the various ethnic groups and cultures in the country. Alas, somewhere along the proverbial line, something ought to have seriously gone awry in both the central editorial room and the studios of that flagship media organization.

Without the benefit of any head count or census, I can readily vouch without any fear of contradiction that nearly a full-half of the percentage of Joy-Fm staff of writers, reporters and program hosts and newscasters are of Anlo-Ewe descent. The latter may also well be, quite predictably, diehard supporters and sympathizers of the Ewe-dominated and operated ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC), just like the staffing composition of the Informer newspaper. And not long ago, for instance, a young writer who had presumed to cross swords with yours truly bitterly complained that Joy-Fm website had conspicuously stopped publishing articles authored by me. But even more importantly, the brazenly uppity young man had insightfully observed that Mr. Kwasi Twum's station only published articles authored by me which were critical of Nana Akufo-Addo and the New Patriotic Party.

Whether the preceding observations bore scrutiny or not, I could not say, for I had not kept count; besides, as I made it known at the time, I had been practicing journalism for quite a considerable while before I heard about any website called Ghanaweb.com, let alone Joy-Fm. For it was through Ghanaweb.com that I had gotten to know about the existence of Joy-Fm. Then we also learned about the threat of an economic embargo that the erstwhile Atta-Mills-led government of the National Democratic Congress had issued to media institutions and organizations that presumed to push their luck too hard, by flatly refusing to toe the unwritten but clearly spoken and articulated edicts of the so-called King-of-Peace.

In essence, reliable word had it, if radio stations like Joy-Fm wanted to keep guzzling advertising cedis from the extant Osu Castle, then they had better not bite the broad and beneficent hand that fed them. Well, as of this writing, I can't remember the last time that my unknown Cousin Kwasi Twum's radio website published any of my articles. But that, of course, is not the focus of our present discourse. What is at issue here is whether any media establishment of remarkable repute can afford to facilely fritter away such hard-earned reputation and stature on such petty grounds that a giant national political figure like Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has short-shrifted it by deciding to honor an invitation to feature on a rival radio station.

The purported Akufo-Addo aide whose name the Informer's editors claim to have withheld, obviously in the figment of their jaundiced imagination, made a serious tactical error if, indeed, as the Informer alleges, Nana Akufo-Addo's decision to feature on Starr-Fm's "Starr Chat" program was primarily based on the reach of niche or catchment magnitude of Starr-Fm's audience. The fact of the matter is that until he recently parted ways with the Multi-Media Group, the host of "Starr Chat," Mr. Kwabena Anokye Adisi (aka Bola Ray) was handily the biggest name in Ghana's daytime talk-radio industry. And that is good reason enough for Nana Akufo-Addo to use "Starr Chat" as an ideal conduit to touch bases with his followers, sympathizers and supporters.

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