Counter hashtags, MP's gaffe: How pro-government communicators have tried to kill #FixTheCountry campaign
Kaly Jay has appealed to politicians to deliver on their promise to Ghanaians
What started off as a tweet by just one social media user by name Kaly Jay has turned out to be massive campaign calling for change in the running of the country.
Initial doubts about the sustainability of the campaign have been erased with celebrities and well-meaning Ghanaians joining the GIJ graduate to trend the #FixTheCountry hashtag.
Per their tweets, they are not asking for much. At the crux of their demands are good schools, portable drinking water for communities, good road networks among others.
But their demand for better conditions as citizens of a 64-year-old country has not been without fierce resistance from pro-government spokespersons.
Whiles the crusaders maintain that their drive is not politically influenced and that they are genuinely concerned with the state of the country, some believe that they are doing the bidding of the main opposition National Democratic Congress, NDC.
Their vehement rejection of the NDC tag has done little to ease the counter-attacks from persons suspected to be NPP members who have in several disjointed hashtags tried unsuccessfully to quench the raging call for government to fix the country.
From #FixYourself to #NanaIsFixingIt, the tweets have largely focused on rebuffing claims by the #FixTheCountry advocates and sometimes have involved attacks on the persons behind the campaign.
Leading party members including Gabby Otchere-Darko and the Managing Director of the Accra Digital Center, Kofi Ofosu Nkansah have in various way tried to play down the campaign and reduce it to partisan politics.
Gabby tweeted: “Several ways of helping fix our country, after 64yrs of under-performance. You must get involved: by finding faults, praising efforts, naming & shaming, getting your hands dirty. In short, by doing something in your own corner. Blame you may, but know you are part of the game.”
Ofosu Nkansah’s tweet read “we are in a Global pandemic and Ghana's Economy has been one of the best managed. Prez Akufo-Addo is in charge and fixing the issues. Let's all fix ourselves to fix into the bigger picture”.
Frank Annoh-Dompreh, the Majority Chief Whip earned himself some verbal abuse with what has been described as an insult to the young Ghanaians behind the campaign.
His handle tweeted an artwork with a list of things he believes to be wrong with the Ghanaian society and captioned it “take good notice of this too”.
The post was deleted and an apology was subsequently issued with the justification that the post was not made by the Nsawam-Adoagyiri MP himself but by one of the handlers.
“I would like to apologise for an earlier tweet which failed to convey both seriousness of the times and to capture the essence of what the youth is demanding,” he tweeted.
These attempts have done little to stop the campaign with a new hashtag “BlackTuesday’ currently in full force to highlight the failures of the political class over the years.
A petition to #FixTheCountry has so far garnered nearly 9,000 signatories and counting.
