Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu wades into ‘papa no’ brouhaha

Majority Leader Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu has waded into the brouhaha generated by Kojo Oppong Nkrumah’s ‘papa no’ comment made on the floor of Parliament on Friday, August 14, 2020.

During a heated debate on the floor of parliament over the Agyapa Royalties Limited agreement, the Information Minister Oppong Nkrumah addressed former Deputy Energy Minister John Jinapor as “Papa no.”

“Mr Speaker, I want to encourage my colleagues on the other side. I want to encourage my good friend who just spoke (John Jinapor). In my hometown, we will say, ‘Papa no.’ ‘Papa no.’ I want to encourage ‘Papa no’ to take some time and follow the structure of this conversation and support,” the Ofoase Ayirebi MP told the House.

His comments which he claims to be in ‘jest’ incurred the wrath of the Minority Leader, Haruna Iddrisu who demanded a retraction and apology.

He threatened that if Oppong Nkrumah does not retract, the minority was never going to respect him as a minister.

“You come to parliament to employ those words used on social media, we take strong objection to it. If you don’t withdraw, we won’t recognise you today as a minister. We will not. Do what you will do,” Haruna Iddrisu said.

Videos of the discourse which went viral on social media resulted in attacks on Oppong Nkrumah with the Sammy Gyamfi describing him as ‘gay’.

But in an interview with Neat FM, the Majority Leader defended the actions of Oppong Nkrumah.

He iterated that his colleague’s comment was not meant to denigrate John Jinapor but was a comment in passing.

He denied knowledge of the viral ‘papa no’ tag and said he was taken aback by the Minority’s reaction to Oppong Nkrumah’s comments.

“We were working on an agreement. It’s a mineral royalty fund and the government had estimated a certain amount from the agreement. So the government has decided that we should mortgage and use the money to fund developmental projects”.

“Oppong Nkrumah told Jinapor that if he had read the report on the agreement he wouldn’t have said the things he said. So he referred to John Jinapor as Papa no, not whoever the original papa no is. John Jinapor didn’t get offended”.

“In the laws of Parliament, you are not supposed to address people by their names. You should refer to them by their constituencies or official titles. We don’t work with that because of the relationship we share. I didn't think it was going to be an issue until I saw it trending on social media".