As a young politician, I stayed in my lane – KT Hammond

Kobina Tahir Hammond, Member of Parliament for Adansi Asokwa in the Ashanti Region has revealed that as an up-and-coming politician, he used to stay in his lane.

His comment followed a harsh critique he delivered on the youth following an incident where President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo was booed.

A section of the crowd at the Global Citizen Festival at the Black Star Square on September 24, clapped and chanted ‘away, away’ when Akufo-Addo mounted the stage to deliver an address.

KT Hammond is among public officials who chastised the youth for engaging in insulting attitude. He described them as empty heads and people who cannot govern even if given the opportunity.

Challenged that he also started off as a young politician, he retorted: “When I started off as a young man, was that how I was doing it? When I was a young man like you, I stayed in my lane. I stuck to my lane.

Asked whether the president had to attend the event at all, he replied: “I don’t know about that, about the movement of the president, about whether he was advised to go or not. It is not the issue. What we are talking about in the end we saw the President there.

“Whatever was going on there, I did not know, I hadn’t heard of it before, we are hot, we don’t know about everything going on. The President owns the nation and so he goes there. But that does mean you should hurl abuse?”

The booing incident: Exactly what happened?

Thousands of patrons were at the Black Star Square to witness the concert that had a number of local and international artistes performing.

As host of the event, the president was called upon to give his remarks, which happened to be a prepared speech that lasted over six minutes.

The booing happened when he started his speech saying: "The whole world is in Ghana today."

What started initially as people showing their disapproval of his presence on the stage, turned into loud clapping and chanting of the words: "away, away...," the president, however, stayed the course and delivered his full speech.

As if that was not enough, people on social media latched on to the development to mock the president.

Watch how the booing started:



About the Global Citizen group and its festival

Global Citizen is the world's largest movement of action takers and impact makers dedicated to ending extreme poverty NOW.

The voices of millions of Global Citizens around the world are driving lasting change towards sustainability, equality, and humanity by taking action every day.

The Global Citizen Festival started as a music festival where fans take actions to end extreme poverty in order to earn free tickets to attend.

You can also watch this episode of People & Places here:

SARA