Citi FM MD Slams David Annan: We only use him to fill airtime

Mr. Samuel Attah-Mensah, Managing Director of Citi FM, an Accra-based commercial radio station, has shot back at a member of the legal team of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC), David Annan, telling him to the face that the station is not ready to kowtow to him nor will Citi FM pander to his (Annan’s) whims and caprices.

According to him, he is not sure that the NDC, with all the brilliant spokespersons and legal luminaries at its disposal, has elected “this guy called David Anane to speak on their behalf when it comes to issues of this nature".

"This guy believes that he is the most important thing that happened to us as a media,” he said with deep sarcasm.

Mr. Attah- Mensah's sharp riposte comes on the heels of a caution from Lawyer Anane last week that Citi FM, Peace FM and Hot FM could suffer a similar boycott from the NDC if they continue to be unfair to the ruling government. According to him, government’s boycott of Multimedia should serve as a caveat to the radio stations named above.

The government, last week, decided to shun all programmes of the MGL and also barred all journalists of the group from covering national events for what they termed “unfair coverage and treatment.” But after four days of the boycott, government rescinded its decision and was represented on JoyFM’s Newsfile programme.

Commenting on the boycott, David Annan, who also doubles as a member of the legal team of embattled businessman, Alfred Agbesi Woyome, dared any legal luminary to cite aspects of the Constitution the government has violated in respect of the decision to treat MGL journalists as “gate-crashers”.

To him, the decision taken by the Ghana government and the NDC as a party was in their best interest because they have not had fair coverage on the Multimedia Group platforms over the years.

“This is a word of caution to other radio stations like Citi FM, Peace FM, Hot FM, among others that it can happen to them,” Lawyer Annan warned.

But speaking in an interview with Fiifi Boafo on Oman FM’s National Agenda Morning Show, a clearly riled Attah-Mensah decried David Annan’s “militant approach” to "reasonable dialogue” and advised him to drift away from such procedure.

He wondered what his contribution to the radio industry over the years had been necessitating his unnecessary critique of journalists and media owners in the country saying “I would be glad to see David Anane set up his own radio station and run it with all the knowledge he claims to have" at his disposal.

"When did he start coming on radio? When we started this struggle in private media from 1995 throughout 1996 and 2000 elections, who knew David Annan? I don't think the NDC itself would be proud of David Annan...what has he achieved?…You sit down and tell the whole world that you have boycotted a whole media institution as a party and as a government, and you go round warning others...We stopped David Annan from showing up on our programmes (Citi FM). Does he have the capacity to say he has boycotted us?...you only call David Annan when your resource persons fails you. When you want an expert and you don't get him, you use David Annan to occupy your air time," he said.

An experienced broadcast journalist cum administration expert, Sammens as the CitiFM MD is popularly known, opined that it is regrettable that the NDC took such a decision considering the timing.

"No government that is in full position for an election would want to do such a thing because it is not productive. That is not to say the station (Multimedia) in question has done everything right...if you have issues, you apply the structures to deal with it", he advised.