April fool stunt causes confusion in Kumasi

An April Fool’s Day joke that was over stretched by a radio station, caused pandemonium at the Kumasi offices of Millicom Ghana Limited, operators of Mobitel mobile phone service in the country. A presenter of the radio station had said on his morning talk show that the company was replacing all analogue Motorola handsets of subscribers with those of GSM.

The announcement repeated several times over the airwaves of the radio station, caused a mad rush of Mobile subscribers to the Nhyiaso office of the company. And in just a matter of hours, the company offices had been besieged by anxious subscribers and officials had a hell of a time convincing agitated customers that the announcement was an all fools day joke.

Management had no option than to rush to several radio stations to pay for announcements to counter the earlier information put out by the first radio station. The Statesman learnt that some subscribers of Mobitel at Obuasi and other areas also traveled to Kumasi upon hearing the announcement to acquire the so-called GSM phones.

The same radio station tried to get someone imitate the voice of the former President Jerry Rawlings but this time round listeners were quick to recognize the voice as a pretender.

Last year, a similar stunt pulled out by another radio station saw the former Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly Chief Executive, Nana Akwasi Agyeman, speeding to the station to extend felicitations to the Jerry Rawlings pretender. Besides the anxiety caused by some of the jokes, some were really serious. One radio station announced that the fair ground of the 2002 Grand Sales, which was then ongoing had been razed to the ground by fire.