The Young Patriots of the NPP bring to the notice of Ghanaians an alarming situation in the culture of political insults in Ghana. This press statement is to;
1. To expose a dangerous development in the culture of political insults and abuse from no less a place than the office of the President, the castle Osu.
2. To call on the President to take action to stop this dangerous development emanating from his office before it degenerates further.
The culture is manifested profusely verbally on the radio and TV but it also strongly manifested in the print media. One newspaper, the Informer, has been championing this crusade of politics of insults, smear campaign, vulgar language and the denigration of political opponents of President Mills since its inception. It has largely abused, maligned, insulted and made spurious allegations against the flag bearer of the New Patriotic Party, other leading members of the NPP such as the Chairman, the General secretary, the communications director, the communications team and leading members of the NPP.
A few examples of the headlines of the informer will help illustrate our point.
1. August 12th, 2011 Ghana’s most vulgar, shameless Hypocrites and parasites, what: Akufo-Addo Sacked from Oxford for Drugs? All these were directed at the Flagbearer Nana Akufo Addo.
2. Shit- Eating-Human-Animal, NPP hates the Military? August 4th
3. Wee Sermon, Nana Addo is on Drugs, August 11th
4. Junkie Parasitic Campaign, Shut up and Chastise Your Man, July 20th
5. Akomea and NPP’s Satanic Agenda Exposed!!! August 8th
6. All die be die prayer Camp ‘cocaine bread, wee water, stupid fool-Akomea’ these were adjectives used to describe cartoon characters on the front page of the paper in their all die depictions.
This is a paper which does not meet any journalistic standards and flouts all rules of engagements regarding the profession of journalism. It publishes unprintable, uncouth, heathen front page stories using all sorts of verbal pornographic descriptions of the political opponents of the President. Unfortunately for us Ghanaians, a paper which does not even sell 20 copies a week is given airtime and reviewed by radio and TV stations, to help propagate their vulgar and illiterate expositions.
We have it on authority that this paper is being published from the office of the President and edited by Mr Kuko Anyidoho, the director of communications at the Presidency. Mr Anyidoho also doubles as the columnist Okyeame, which is a column dedicated to smear campaigns, insults and abuse of Nana Akufo Addo and all leading members of the NPP. He has recently even extended it to include the Rawlings’s and all Ghanaians who dare air their opposing views to the NDC government. Please be reminded that Mr Anyidoho use to write another column Casius Clay in the palaver news paper. Casius Clay was also another platform he used to rein insults, malign, smear campaigned in the most vulgar of languages and lied about leading members of the NPP.
We call on the President to dismiss Mr Kuko Anyidoho for his role in fuelling the politics insults and his continues use of his paper to do so even after the President admonished all Ghanaians to put a stop to it.
We are calling on civil society, religious organizations, GJA, media commission and all well meaning Ghanaians to join us in this call on the President to dismiss Mr Anyidoho and to bring stringent actions against the Informer.
Signed
Richard Nyamah
Hopson Adorye
John Kumah
Asamoah Gyamfi
Adomako Baafi
