Ignore presidential aspirants for now – Kwame Pianim advises media

Founder member of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Kwame Pianim has admonished the media not to be carried away by the subtle moves of some “ambitious” persons to be president.

To him, the current needs of the country does not warrant discussions on who succeeds the president, for instance.

According to him, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has not even finished forming his government for some members of his party to rear their head as his successor.

“The media is supposed to be the voice for the voiceless, so when somebody starts talking about who is going to be the candidate, the media should question them,” he suggested on The Keypoints on TV3/3FM on Saturday, April 10.

‘Ugly noises’

This comes in the wake of agitations by some key personalities within the NPP ahead of the party’s presidential primaries in 2022.

The party’s executives have spoken against posters of some members popping up and called a stop to this.

Mr Pianim believes it is the media that is giving oxygen to these issues.

“What has this got to be putting food on the table for the average person. What does it mean for them for getting Covid vaccination so that my old parents do not die untimely and the children can go to school. These are the issues that I think we should be focusing on.

“And we should ignore the people who are fighting to become president or flooding out the airwaves with ugly noises of politics. Politics has ugly noises, it will always be there but my view as an old man is that don’t get distracted.”

But this was contested by the Managing Editor of the Daily Dispatch, Ben Ephson, who considered it as a form of gagging the media.

Ben Ephson said the issues are those being discussed within the rank and file of the NPP and the media is only reporting them.

“After 47 years in this job as a journalist, I wish to assure Mr Pianim that apart from God, nobody can gag the media. So with due respect, he shouldn’t expect that if the media picks up certain things happening, [it is wrong]"

“So, Mr Pianim, it is coming from under the ground and the media will pick it up.”