'Are you insane?' - Adom-Otchere tackles Barker-Vormawor over June 4 armed demo

Paul Adom-Otchere, the host of Good Evening Ghana on Metro TV has described Oliver Barker-Vormawor as a mentally unstable person referencing his request to lead an armed demonstration on Saturday, June 4, 2022.

According to him, the activist needs to be admitted to a psychiatric hospital to undergo what he described as a “megalomania” problem he is suffering.

Adom-Otchere took to the ‘Touchscreen Analysis’ segment of his show on Thursday, June 2, to analyse the content of a letter Barker-Vormawor had written on behalf of some other members seeking to demonstrate on Saturday.

“This young man [referring to Barker-Vormawor] writes to the Police that he wants to have a demonstration and he says he wants to arm the demonstrators, that kind of talk; insane talk like that; and the next minute, he is on social media begging, what is he begging for, are you sick?

“They are so childish and infantile, they think this nation building is some child’s play, some foolishness, so, they just come back from London and they have megalomania, their shoulders are higher than their head…we all can’t be either NPP or NDC but we must agree on certain fundamental principles that we don’t want such foolishness in our society, this is foolishness,” Paul Adom-Otchere said.

Speaking on June 4 as the chosen date for the demonstrators, the Board Chair of Ghana Airport Company Limited said, “the choice of June 4 is banished in our history, that nobody wants to remember; but when you have opportunists who are insane, that’s the date they choose. An opportunist who is insane is the one who chooses June 4 to try and show something…”

Explaining some pointers addressed in the police statement, Adom-Otchere stated: “Does the Public Order Act say anywhere that you can have private security to protect you when you are doing a demonstration? You must be insane; you must have megalomania to write to the police and say you will use private security.

“Foolish boy! You write to the police and say that the demonstrators have to contract private security personnel and they will be armed, where are you going to get the arms from? In Ghana, we don’t have the rules in America that you can just buy ammunition and he thought that he was just joking; you see they are so petty. And he wrote to Captain Smart that he wants to make the letter more scary, who was he scaring? And now he comes and he is apologizing; what are you apologizing for?

“Young people always have something to offer so, we love him [Barker-Vormawor] but not young people who have megalomania and who are mad, we can’t deal with people like that.”

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Touching on the demonstrator’s decision to speak to Ghanaians through the state broadcaster, GBC, he noted, “can you imagine that; he is going to GBC to go and sit there?

"Even former President John Mahama will not make such demand and if he makes it, it will make sense but look at him [Barker-Vormawor], that he is a PhD student somewhere, he is a lawyer with his megalomania, he is demanding that when he is doing his demonstration, he wants to go to the state broadcaster and broadcaster directly to the nation; the guy is mad, I think that maybe for those of you who love him, send him to the psychiatric hospital…and you will be doing him a lot of good…”

Background

The #FixTheCountry convener served a notice to the Police on their decision to embark on a demonstration against the Agyapa deal, cessation of the Achimota Forest Reserve and to press home the need to protect the sanctity of the country’s security.

In their notice, they requested to be allowed to contract private security personnel to protect the demonstrators.

Among other things, they also notified the Police that the demonstrators and the contracted private security personnel will be armed with weapons.

Also, they stated that the armed demonstrators will picket at the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) and the Ghana Police Headquarters.

At GBC, they will demand to speak directly to the nation on GTV and layout their grievances.

But the Police in a statement noted that they are unable to provide security for a demonstration which is in flagrant violation of the Public Order Act, 1994 (Act 49) and has the potential to result in a breach of public order and public safety.

According to the Police, they have reached out to the organisers to reconsider their proposal and work with the Police towards the organisation of a lawful, peaceful and successful demonstration.

“We wish to assure the public that in the interest of public safety and security, the Police are putting in place all necessary measures to ensure that unauthorised persons do not march on the streets with weapons.”