My unsolicited, open-air advice to President Akufo-Addo regarding his sense of humor

Mr President, any time you attempted to be humorous, it turned out to be more discomforting than relaxing nerves and alleviating the stressful economic emotions emanating from his regime.

Your Excellency, since I have not had the opportunity to directly offer my unsolicited advice on your sense of humor to you, I have decided to give this open-air piece for your attention and the public.

There are two things or variables one should evaluate before going ahead to attempt to be humorous or give a funny comment when speaking at a particular time and place.

First, the speaker should be convinced that what is to be said is inherently funny and secondly, the speaker should also be mindful of a ‘plan B’ if a considered funny comment or joke does not work out or the audience does not react to it favorably.

If you are sure your comment is not inherently funny and there is no readily available ‘Plan B’ to rely on, you better not attempt to be funny or humorous in your delivery. The naturally born comedians who are (un)professional comedians will confirm this as people may pay to watch them, and they do the funny part to make the people laugh!

Based on the two variables stated above, Mr. President, I can assure you that you did not carefully consider the impact of your half-baked jokes on your audience (Ghanaians) on a number of occasions before saying them.

Let me start with your latest unpalatable delivery when you paid a visit to the victims of the ongoing artificially created Akomsombo flood in the Volta region in this month of October 2023.

Indeed, the audio-visual recording of you during that speech delivery was unpalatable, unsympathetic, and unpresidential toward the affected people of the Volta Region. I cannot still believe that you attempted to show your sense of humor by bringing up the issue of votes for you and your NPP Party instead of being sympathetic toward them as the ‘father for all’ at that crucial moment. This was a huge blunder. The public outrage and backlash about your failed joke is appropriate!

Mr. President, another case in point when you badly failed again with your sense of humor is your Peace FM interview with Kwame Sefa Kayi on 21/10/21 after winning your second term in December 2020. In that interview, Kwame Sefa Kayi put to you a simple but pressing issue concerning the abandonment of a school facility (E-Block) in the Aflao traditional area and the frustration of its paramount chief.

Unexpectedly, your response as the President of the country was again unpresidential and smacked of disrespect to the traditional leader who was only interested in drawing attention for authorities to complete a school infrastructure to be used to even support your touted FSHS program. Was it a joke to tell a paramount chief that ‘he should go and do it himself’ if he thinks not much is being done? Mr. President, this obviously was a dangerous and expensive ‘joke’ and not funny to laugh about!

In the Ashanti Region, you were asked a similar infrastructure-related question regarding deplorable roads by a Journalist on one of the Radio stations but you appeared characteristically cheeky in an unperturbed manner. You even suggested that those concerned citizens could vote for the largest Opposition NDC in 2024 if they were unhappy with your efforts. This again was unpresidential, insensitive, and unpalatable as the President of the country.

Mr. President, your public statements are becoming a predictive chain of failed jokes which unfortunately have the potential of sowing seeds of discord, divisiveness, and disgruntlement. With respect to your rein, you do have exactly 15 more months to go before handing over power to another democratically elected leader come December 7, 2024, as per Ghana’s constitution.

I am not sure you may want your failed jokes to occupy a large part of your legacy after you are long gone. I am tempted to believe that you may want to put Ghana on a good footing before you bow out of power gracefully and peacefully.

So, it is my view that the two variables are crucially important to consider in exhibiting your sense of humor, if any. Thus, always factor in the ‘joke itself’ and ‘Plan B’, if the former fails you, in your subsequent joke attempts.

Your Excellency, in these difficult times created by your ineffective leadership in resurrecting the economy, fighting corruption, and worsening the galamsey menace under your regime, good laughter is greatly desired to relax nerves but not ‘toxic’ jokes to drain the energies of citizens further.