Bature fumes: I saved Kwesi Pratt when he was redundant

At the time many who tuned in to Radio Gold’s morning show yesterday were expecting him to be deeply elated by the compliments showered on him by the Managing Editor of The Insight newspaper as the foremost among the benefactors of The Insight newspaper in the last 20 years, Alhaji Bature Iddrisu is rather mortified and affronted.

As part of events marking the 20th anniversary of The Insight, Mr. Pratt, who was hosted on Radio Gold yesterday paid glowing tribute to some people he said have helped sustain his paper, among them included, the Managing Editor of The Al-Hajj and Founder of “Alhaji & Alhaji” News Analysis program currently running on Radio Gold, Alhaji Bature Iddrisu.

“I have never benefited a pesewa from The Insight, it was through the benevolence of people that we have been able to sustain the paper…I don’t have their permission to mention their names, but people like Alhaji Scorpion, Alhaji Razak and Alhaji Bature…, You know Alhaji Bature, he use to sometime back host Alhaji & Alhaji; he has been of tremendous support to the sustenance of The Insight,” Mr. Pratt told host of the show, Alhassan Suhuyini.

However, when this reporter wanted his reactions to the kind compliments and songs of praise showered on him by his colleague and ace political analyst, Alhaji Bature was amazingly seethed with intense anger.

Shockingly fumed by Mr. Pratt’s comments, Alhaji Bature bellowed: “Though, you may think so, but let me tell you that, what happened on Radio Gold is an unfinished agenda by Pratt to undermine my role in the coming into fruition of one of Ghana’s biggest Current Affairs News Analysis program, Alhaji & Alhaji, now aired every Saturday on Radio Gold.”

According to Alhaji Bature, the Insight Managing Editor was mischievous and fatally falsified history as he has attempted to do over the years, adding that the deliberate reference to him as a ‘mere’ former host of the “Alhaji & Alhaji”, even when he Pratt knows within his heart and mind that the program was his brainchild and nobody can take that away from him is what has saddened him.

“I founded, designed, developed, presented and produced the program, something that Kwesi Pratt knows very well…yet, for reasons best known to him and the chameleon that he is, he has consistently and stubbornly chosen to downplay and conveniently portray my contribution to the evolution and development of Alhaji & Alhaji as a mere pedestrian host of the show.

Mindful of the fact that some people may see his reaction as frivolous, petty and inconsequential, Alhaji Bature stated “what we are talking about here is about history, about my legacy and posterity…it is my ‘works’, we are talking about, my brother”.

According to him, he has been quite over the matter ever since Kwesi Pratt, whom he favoured by inviting him on to the program and making him a regular guest betrayed him, after conspiring to get the program ‘physically’ taken away from him, but said, he won’t sit down any further for Kwesi Pratt to continue denigrating him.

“Ask Kwesi, when he was hounded from Joy FM’s Newsfile program and was virtually redundant so far as weekend political talk shows was concern, who saved him? I did not only invite him as a guest on the program at the time after Alhaji A. B. A. Fuseini begged me to do so back then when I started the program on Vibe FM, but also, I went ahead and made him a regular guess on the program, so for him to have designated me in such a pedestrian manner, it is hurtful.”

He said, he would have taken Mr. Pratt’s actions ordinarily, but for the ace political commentator’s previous utterances and behavior relating to the program, he realized it is an elaborate plan from him to distort the history surrounding the program.

“Way back in 2005 at Mokase Restaurant at Aviation Social Center when we went there for launch after one of the editions of the program, Kwesi complained of why I invited Egbert Fabile Jnr on the program that day, when I resisted his attempt to determine who was to feature on the program, he told me I’m behaving as if the program was mine,” he added.

Alhaji Bature said, he is however, taking consolation in the fact that, people like Randy Abbey, Host of Good Morning Ghana on Metro TV, Dr. Tonny Aidoo, a Senior Presidential Staffer, Mr. James Agyenin Boateng of the office of the Vice President and Mutala Muntari are all alive to bear him witness that the program was his creation and that he wasn’t even an ‘exalted’ host as Mr. Pratt would want people to believe.