#OccupyBoG Petition: Governor showed 'humility and respect' by sending bank's security head - Atik scolds NDC

Atik Mohammed has rebuked the Minority in Parliament for refusing to deliver their petition to the Director of Security at the Bank of Ghana, Wing Commander Kwame Asare-Boateng, during their protest on Tuesday, October 3.

The Wing Commander had met the protesters to receive their petition on behalf of the Governor, Dr. Ernest Addison, but the leaders of the protest, who are NDC Members of Parliament, declined to give it to him.

"Parliament invites the Bank of Ghana at least twice a year and he has appeared only three times in seven years so it's not strange. It is the height of disrespect that we will come here and he will send the watchman, the watchman at the Bank of Ghana to come and receive the petition."

"Okay, the watchman should come to Parliament as well, when next he needs anything from Parliament he should send the watchman as well but we will be back. We will give the Police some days to rest but we will be back," Ningo-Prampram law maker, Sam George said in an interview on TV3.

But to Atik, the Governor deputizing his Head of Security to receive the petition was rather an act of respect.

"It's a show of humility and regard for the parliamentary group and indeed all demonstrators to send someone to receive the petition...and you see, what saddens me the more is that he did not just appoint anybody at all but somebody of a highest standing in the bank," he responded during discussions on Peace FM's "Kokrokoo" morning show.

He found it unreasonable that the protesters walked back home with their petition.

To him, the demonstration was "about the pursuit of self-interest more than the collective good, because if indeed it's about the pursuit of the collective good, you create an opportunity to make sure you have an engagement with the Governor. And even if you don't want to do that and you have opted for demonstration, make sure you hand over the petition to him and after he's read it, he will give you responses".