The recent hullabaloo engineered by the Western Regional Chairman of the NDC over the inability of President Kufour to appear on a VOA radio program during his recent visit to the US cannot be allowed to go without comment.
As a Ghanaian who has lived and worked in the United States for over thirty years and having rubbed shoulders with a lot of those who matter in US business and political circles, I wish to state right away that the arguments put forward by the NDC loser is infantile at best and malicious at worse. The President was in the US first to attend the UN General Assembly and a related conference on HIV/AIDS. He then took the opportunity to meet with very important business and political figures in the US. And the list of people and groups he met were carefully selected for maximum benefit to the country which he leads.
In the scheme of things and his very tight schedule meeting very important personalities, I am of the strong conviction that the VOA radio interview would rank at the very bottom of priorities. He could have attended (for entertainment purposes and) may be to provide the miserable cry-baby host, an NDC sympathizer, with some respectability for his program. But if his schedule got tight, as it turned out to be, then the less important ones, like the radio show obviously had to be yanked. And it was. The most the host needed was an apology which was offered. The President broke no diplomatic rules here!!!.
I was privy to the President’s itenary: The Investment Forum that he attended offered an excellent opportunity to meet with prominent Wall Street business persons: He did not let that golden opportunity slip away. On the day in question the New Patriotic Party Executives from New Jersey & New York had a meeting scheduled with the President. On our appointed time we arrived at the Hotel Lobby and met the Foreign Minister, Nana Akufo Addo who briefed us on the outcome of the Forum. We took the same elevator with Nana Akuffo Addo to the floor where we met the President later that night. Our group was the last to meet with the President that night. We left him around 11.30 P.M. He had no party scheduled which prevented him from going to the VOA radio show as Asamoah alleges.
The President was faced with choices and unlike our immediate Past President who was never decisive and could not grasp opportunities when they came his way, President Kufuor made a choice and it was to cancel a radio show for an investment meeting. He made a good choice and we applaud him. The VOA host should have shown respect to the President
The NDC’s Asamoah was not in New York and could not have interpreted the events the way he has done. He and his cronies wish that Ghana slid back into the old days of his master JJ. He should be grateful that President Kufour and the NPP have created a free atmosphere under which he can spill these diatribe and go home to sleep without harassment.
Over the course of the past 30 years that I have lived in New York, I have met with so many Ghanaian government officials and Heads of State including the bloke and disgraceful ones like Rawlings. Rawlings was a disgrace to the nation. His first appearance at the UN was an embarrassment. An appearance he also made at a Moslem Mosque in New York in 1998 was even more shocking . At a mosque dedicated to the memory of the revered Malcolm X, Rawlings, the then "admired" "revolutionary" African Head of State was expected to make a rousing motivating speech to the Black compatriots. He had nothing to say. He instead called together a couple of guys among the audience whom he recognized as Old Achimotans and started singing old Achimota war songs with them to the utter dismay and embarrassment of all Ghanaians present.
This is the man the likes of Asamoah have followed, worshiped and admired for all these years. They are thus not comfortable to see President Kufour engaging in respectable diplomacy and meeting with important people in rather productive meetings. An appearance at a VOA radio show is good but it certainly is not better than meeting important business persons and top-level respectable politicians.
We shall be monitoring the utterances of the Asamoahs and their cohorts and we shall definitely return fire with fire and put the records straight where they engage in outright lies to smear the President, our Party, government and ultimately the image of our country for which they do not give a damn. They all better watch their tongues!!.
New York City, USA
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