‘Awam’ apology: Ayisi Boateng asked to resign by Monday

Ghana’s High Commissioner to South Africa, George Ayisi Boateng has been given a definite date to vacate his post by the opposition.

The Greater Accra Regional Chairman of the largest opposition party, NDC, Ade Coker says the embattled High Commissioner is expected to give his resignation letter to the president latest by Monday, November 6.

Ayisi Boateng has come under intense pressure, mainly from the opposition parties and civil society groups, to resign after divisive and partisan comments he made while addressing students group of his party, NPP, last week in Kumasi.

He had earlier defended his comments in the face of massive criticisms, but grudgingly apologised after a groundswell of disapproval greeted his stance.

Though the government accepted his apology, according to the Foreign Affairs ministry, a section of Ghanaians believe it was a half-hearted apology, and accelerated a campaign to get him sacked.

A former deputy agric minister under the Akufo-Addo-led government was forced to resign under similar circumstance when he was accused of making ethnocentric comments, though he apologised profusely.

On TV3’s New Day Saturday hosted by Abena Tabi, Mr. Ade Coker said Ayisi Boateng’s comment is undeserving of a High Commissioner.

The statement is “in a bad taste”, he pointed out.

Since he represents the president of Ghana in that position, the NDC Chairman wants President Akufo-Addo to take a position on the highly criticised comments by his appointee.

Even before that request is considered by the president, Ade Coker revealed what would rather satisfy him. “An apology is not the best. I will still give him the title, [but] His Excellency Ayisi Boateng should do the right thing; by Monday, he should come out and say that he has resigned,” he demanded.

For Prof. Clement Dzidonu, President of Accra Institute of Technology, he is still not convinced if Ayisi Boateng genuinely wants to be high commissioner for all Ghanaians.

“Not sure he is our ambassador,” he said, assessing the delayed apology after Ayisi Bpateng made those “not smart, not thoughtful” comments.

The “wise thing” was to have apologised “immediately” when the issue came up, he said, but to take him days to succumb to pressure and apologise, “I am disappointed”.

“For me, this apology is a forced one, or to be put in our own parlance that it is awam kind of apology, he didn’t do that with his heart, he was told, he was pressured by colleagues to do it to stop the embarrassment.

“Now that he has done it, it is up to we Ghanaians to decide whether it is good enough; for me it is not good enough because he was pressured…I don’t think it is a genuine one.”