The Sad End Of Afia Pokua

It seems that there is no love lost between Afia Pokua, one of the seasoned presenters of Tema-based Adom Fm and the management of the station.

Afia Pokua, who is one of the news editors and does the newspaper review on the station’s morning show, as well as hosts a political programme, is currently mourning over what she and many listeners described as unfair treatment meted out to her by the station.

Afia woke up one fine Tuesday morning and on her arrival at the station, was told by management that Akosua Safoa Kantimpo, a newscaster who left Adom FM some years back for Hot FM, was now in charge of the newspaper review. Afia was not given any written notice to officially inform her about the decision to relieve her of her post.

Afia Pokua, who had worked with the station for over 12 years, made a lot of impact on Adom FM’s morning show ‘Dwaso Nsem’, paving the way for her to be counted among the best when it comes to morning shows on radio.

BEATWAVES gathered that Afia Pokua had been credited with the success of Adom FM’s morning show, which is currently being handled by Adakabre Frimpong Manso.

Speculations are rife that certain people are in support of the decision to drop Afia Pokua from doing the newspaper review on the morning show.

Reports available indicate that Afia Pokua is not in the good books of certain people because her comments on certain issues are too “antagonistic”.

BEATWAVES gathered that when Abeiku Santana left the Tema Community Two-based station a year or so ago, Afia Pokua expressed her desire to leave but the management of Adom Fm convinced her to stay because the station needed her services.

Surprisingly, the same people who persuaded Afia Pokua to stay with the station have now abandoned her.

Adakabre Frimpong Manso however distanced himself from the issue, saying that he was out of the country when the management took the decision to drop Afia Pokua from the morning show team.

It would be recalled that in August 2010, Ekuoba Gyasi, the then morning show host on Adom FM, also suffered the same fate with the excuse that he had not been able to push the station to overtake Peace 104.3 FM’s morning show.

Somewhere in August 2010, when Ekuoba Gyasi was relieved of his post, Kofi Adoma was asked to hold the fort before Adakabre Frempong took over as host of the Adom morning show.

Readers will recall that Adakabre used to host the Adom morning show some years back before he left for Hot FM.

In a related development, a group calling itself Concerned Listeners of Adom FM threatened to stage a massive demonstration in Tema to protest the unfair treatment of certain staff of the radio station by its management, but later postponed it.

The president of the group, Kofi Nana Opoku, told BEATWAVES that the demonstration was postponed to give management of Adom FM enough time to find a solution to the problems raised by the group a few weeks ago when its leaders met with the management.

He disclosed that the grievances of the group had already been forwarded to the management board of the station, which promised to communicate its final decision to the group as soon as possible.

In a petition signed by the president of the Concerned Listeners of Adom Fm, the group stated that it was not happy about the way the station was being managed, and called for the removal of Adakabre Frimpong Manso, the host of the morning show and Akosua Safoa Kantinpo.

The petition also called on management to bring back presenters like Odei Ampofo, Eddie Kay, Dr Duncan, Ekuoba Gyasi and Daddy Bosco, then the programmes manager, to help revamp the image of the station.

It again appealed to management of the station to bring back Afia Pokua to handle the newspaper review. “We don’t want Akosua Safoa Kintinpo on the morning show”.

Nana Yaa Boaponsem should be allowed to read the 12:00 and 6:00pm news bulletins,” it noted.

In response to the petition, the management of the station, in a letter dated January 31, signed by William Amoabeng and Klaus Von Backustein, Human Resource Manager and former Chief Operating Officer respectively, said it was very gratifying to know how passionate and dedicated the group was to the station and wished that it remained the ultimate choice for listeners across the country.

The letter said, “We believe that our meeting with you on January 30 was very fruitful. You gave us a lot of feedback while we also had the opportunity to offer explanations on some of the issues raised in the letter which we hope will give you better appreciation on our internal operations and leadership direction.

“As explained at the meeting, some of the matters of concern are purely board decisions and could not be addressed at our level. We have therefore forwarded your letter to our board of directors for their review. We will communicate whatever response they may have as soon as they get back to us”.