Most vilified President statement: What's your evidence – Pratt asks Prof. Karikari

Former Executive Director of the MFWA and Dean of School of Communications at the Wisconsin University, Prof. Kwame Karikari has been called out to produce empirical evidence for pinpointing two former Presidents as the most vilified leaders in Ghana’s political space.

Veteran journalist and Editor-in-Chief of the Insight Newspaper, Kwesi Pratt charged the Prof. Karikari to provide empirical basis for his utterances since his position as a public figure puts a lot of onus on him and for people to readily accept his pronouncements.

Mr. Pratt, while speaking on Metro TV’s ‘Good Morning Ghana’ reiterated that as a former practitioner, Prof. Karikari statements such as these could only be left at that if it were an opinion.

He further explained that making such pronouncements especially on the platform of the 70th anniversary of the Ghana Journalists Association may make it more believable and therefore urged his colleague to provide evidence.

“…Prof. Kwame Karikari is one of the most respected academics when it comes to journalism and has also been a practitioner. Therefore, when he speaks it ought to carry a lot of weight. And it ought to carry a lot of weight because there is a general belief that what he says is backed by empirical evidence.

I’m wondering whether there is any empirical evidence to support the claim that the most vilified heads of state we’ve had are President Jerry John Rawlings and the current President Nana Addo-Dankwa Akufo-Addo.”

“For he, when he occupies public space, especially when he’s given the 70th-anniversary lecture of the Ghana Journalists Association is supposed to be speaking from empirical basis… if it’s an opinion, yes it’s an opinion; you can leave it at that level. But I’m wondering what empirical basis there is for that suggestion that the two most vilified heads of state are former President JJ Rawlings and current President Nana Akufo-Addo” he quizzed

Prof. Karikari on Tuesday during the 70th Anniversary Public Lecture of the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) intimated that “Jerry John Rawlings and Nana Akufo-Addo have been the biggest victims of political insults in our politics today.”