Don’t highlight negatives only, talk about our successes as well - Gabby to ‘social media influencers’

Legal practitioner and leading member of the New Patriotic Party, Gabby Asare Otchere-Darko, has asked certain ‘social media influencers’ to treat themselves as the subject of a magnifying glass and scrutinize whether they really classify as influencers or as members of the opposition.

According to Gabby Otchere-Darko, a number of these influencers are quick to highlight the ‘negatives’ of the NPP government, just as opposition parties do, but are not as quick to talk about the success story of the NPP as is expected of a rather neutral person.

Mr. Otchere-Darko said in a Facebook post that it was typical of opposition members to always highlight the negatives of the government, something that distinguishes them from Civil Society groups. However, some of these influencers whom he(Gabby Otchere-Darko) describes as highly educated, intelligent, eloquent and opinionated, have taken on the characteristics of the opposition members.

According to the NPP stalwart, the Facebook posts of some of these influencers appear targeted at eliciting feelings of dispiritedness among Ghanaians and always places focus on what is wrong with the country and not the several good things about the country.

He admonished these ‘influencers’ to criticize constructively, show them(government) when they err and point them to better examples rather than amplifying pessimism.

Read below Gabby Otchere-Darko’s post on Facebook

“There are some key influencers on social media who must also check themselves. Otherwise, they should classify themselves as opposition – pure and simple.

Typically, opposition ignores positive news and highlight negativity. That is what distinguishes, for example, opposition party from a civil society group, in my view.

These influencers I refer to are usually highly educated, intelligent, eloquent and highly opinionated with a strong following to feed their egos. I’ve observed them keenly for a while.

You go back and follow their posts. You know them too! In sum, they choose to mainly highlight things that make you feel sorry for yourself for being Ghanaian.

They will share reports that are negative on Ghana, comment on how bad things are or show how others are doing things better than us. They focus on things we do wrong.

It is as if their relevance is purely in amplifying pessimism. Show us when we go wrong, by all means.

Point us to better examples, for sure. But, cure yourself of the fear of good news made in Ghana.”