Your 'envy' is the 'let-the-blood-flow' kind – Otchere-Darko on GIS tweet trolls

Danquah Institute founder Gabby Asare Otchere-Darko has said the backlash and trolls flung at him on social media in connection with his recent tweet about his daughters’ academic performance at the Ghana International School (GIS) betrays his critics “envy”.

“It is this kind of envy that led to calls for blood to flow against those who were seen as successful in this very country”, the president’s cousin said in a Facebook riposte, adding: “It did not matter much how you made your money. Wealth was criminalised!”

Read Mr Otchere-Darko’s full statement below:

Some six or so years ago, a man celebrated his daughters for receiving awards at some school. No fuzz! No fuss! Kids had been in the same school for 10yrs no big deal.

Today, because of some political circumstances, there is a backlash for doing same at the same school! It is not that this man claims to be a socialist or something!

It is this kind of envy that led to calls for blood to flow against those who were seen as successful in this very country. It did not matter much how you made your money. Wealth was criminalised!

That man being bashed for celebrating his kids today, his own dad, for example, made his money working tirelessly as a surgeon in Germany and saved it all to invest back in his country of birth when he moved his family here in 1979. During the revolution, his vehicles, including Mercedes Benz, were for a while taken away and used as trotro for his kids to walk to school! That Ghanaian medical officer, educated in Germany (after St Augustine’s in Cape Coast) on merit with cocoa scholarship, was so frustrated in the early 80s that he had to return abroad against his best wishes.

Today, we have in Akufo-Addo, a president, who sees the value in education because it is that which made his parents, who then had the means to give him the best education money could buy, which has made him President today. It is that basic opportunity (access to education) that he believes no child born to this country must be denied simply because his or her parents do not have the means.

That is how we build a society of opportunities. Some of us were [taught] at home that privilege offers us but the DUTY to give back to society. Give the next generation the opportunity to do better than the previous. You don’t have to pretend to be poor in order to appreciate poverty and help the poor. That is called hypocrisy!

Society must not bastardise the celebration of success because it is that which inspires others to succeed. What is important is to remind the young ones that success comes from hard work, dedication, patience, discipline and perseverance. And, in all that pursuit for success, above all, protect your integrity as if it is your source of oxygen.