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Office of the Speaker writes to The Spectator, saying: George Frank Asmah’s aspersions on Speaker exposes his ignorance
Mr.George Frank Asmah, in his column in The Spectator newspaper of Saturday, August 28 2021 titled, “Parliament: When Bagbin decides to tell a ‘red’ lie”, sort to cast aspersions on the integrity of the Speaker of Parliament, Rt. Hon. Alban Bagbin.That direct and baseless attack on the integrity of the Speaker is not only an affront to the Office of the Speaker of Parliament of Ghana, but also hypocritical and shameful.
It is a known fact that Mr. John Boadu, in the heat of the 2020 elections, made a categorical statement which was captured on video and has since been trending allover the internet saying that President Akuffo Addo had won the Presidential elections but the NPP lost the parliamentary elections to the NDC.
The Speaker only re-echoed what Mr. Boadu said on tape but strangely, the only one who didnot hear that was Mr.George Frank Asmah.It is important to state however that before I made this decision to write this rejoinder, I called Mr.George Frank Asmah to enquire from him if he had watched the video or seen a transcription of it and his answer was a definite No.He had not seen the video: he only heard Mr. Boadu deny ever voicing out those words attributed to him and decided to launch his attack.
In the writeup, he stated, and I quote; “Rt. Hon. Bagbin: you are known as a very competent lawyer. Not so? In the ‘game of law’ is it not the case that EVIDENCE is supreme? So where is the evidence that what you told the Ethiopian Parliamentary delegation actually happened?”
I get the impression from the above quote that my senior,George Frank Asmah, has forgotten that it is not only in the “game of law” that EVIDENCE becomes supreme. Even as journalists, we are required by our code of ethics to ensure fairness, equity, balance and establish the truthin what we write. The evidence Mr.George Frank Asmah is looking for is allover the place and in every newsroom. There can only be one conclusion to draw from this behavior and that is mischief or a crave to use his column in The Spectator newspaper to court the attention of whoever will get him appointed into political office.
One can understand the frustrations of Mr. George Frank Asmah, who in 2005 was lifted from the newsroom of the New Times Corporation to become District Chief Executive of the Komenda-Edna-Eguafo-Abirem (KEEA) District Assembly under the NPP administration. This has been the NPP’s way of encouraging journalists like George Frank Asmah to be wayward and unprofessional against the opposition and in turn, they get rewarded with juicy appointments. There is a plethora of such journalists around today on different appointments.
George Frank Asmah’s frustration is a result of waiting in vain over the years for another juicy appointment which has since eluded him.So in his imagination, Mr.George Frank Asmah thinks he can now court the attention of the appointing authority by defending leading members of the ruling party, in this case, the dishonest and devious behavior of Mr. John Boadu, General Secretary of the New Patriotic Party(NPP), to court attention.
Even before his election into the high office of the Speaker of Parliament, Rt. Hon. Bagbin had committed himself to the cause of the nation building and has exhibited high moral integrity at all material times.It is with this same standard that Mr. Speaker spoke to the Ethiopian Parliamentary Delegation when they paid a courtesy call on him in his office. He spoke from the perspective of many issues known to him and it was with this conviction that he admonished the Ethiopian delegation to emulate only the good sides of Ghana’s democracy.
I have no doubt about the unwavering devotion of the Speaker to the collective cause of building a prosperous nation. He has no intention whatsoever to do anything that will jeopardize the successes that this country has achieved so far.Perhaps my little advice to George Frank, who wants to use this antiquated style of directing attention or traffic to himself for political position, to use his energy, time and column provided for him to tout his legacy for the people of KEEA during his stewardship as District Chief Executive.
How many lives did he transform with his leadership in KEEA? What impact did he make? I believe if he is able to do this honestly and effectively, he would not need to destroy the reputations of others or be seen hopping or jumping to defend dishonest men whose words do not mean anything to them and who cannot defend their own words when it is played back to them.
I will come back and discuss the extreme trauma that the chiefs and people of KEEA have been made to suffer following the refusal of the powers that be to put to use the Komenda Sugar Factory which was commissioned in 2016 by the government at the time.This facility was built from loans that would be serviced with tax payers’ money and one would have expected people who claim to hail from the area where it is built to join calls for it to start operations, to produce the sugar for which it was built, and not bad mouth it or sit aloof. That should be your focus, George Frank!
Peter Bampoe
Communication Officer,
Office of the Speaker
By G. Frank Asmah
One of the issues we have been grappling with as a nation is corruption, and it has had such a devastating effect on our national development. I have been convinced that until morality becomes the foundation upon which our governance system is built, we can never go forward as a nation.
Our traditional practices, which have shaped our cultural beliefs, have always espoused values that have kept us along the straight and the narrow and have preserved our societies since ancient times.
These are values that frown on negative habits like stealing, cheating, greediness, selfishness, etc. Our grandparents have told us stories of societies where stealing was regarded as so shameful that offenders, when caught, have on a number of instances committed suicide.
In fact, my mother told me of a story where a man who was living in the same village as her mother (my grandmother), after having been caught stealing a neighbour’s cockerel, out of shame committed suicide on a mango tree. Those were the days that shameful acts were an abomination.
Tegare worship, a traditional spiritual worship during which the spirit possesses the Tegare Priest and begins to reveal secrets, was one of the means by which the society upheld African values in the days of my grandmother and the early childhood days of my mother.
Those were the days when the fear of being killed by Tegare prevented people from engaging in anti-social vices. These days, people sleeping with other people’s wives are not uncommon.
These wrongful behaviour was not countenanced at all by Tegare. One was likely going to lose his life on days that Tegare operates, and so unhealthy habits like coveting your neighbour’s wife was a taboo.
Stealing of other people’s farm produce, for instance, could mean certain death or incapacitation of the whole or part of the body in the full glare of everybody. People realised that there were consequences for wrongdoing, and this went a long way to motivate the society to adhere to right values.
Imagine a President being sworn into office and whoever administers the oath says, “Please say this after me: I, Mr. …., do solemnly swear by God, the spirits of my ancestors and the spirits ruling in Ghana, that should I engage in corrupt acts, may I and my family become crippled, may madness become entrenched in my family, may incurable sicknesses and diseases be my portion and that of my family, both immediate and extended.”
Can you imagine a situation where a few weeks afterwards the President goes to engage in corrupt acts and we hear of his sudden demise or incapacitation and confessing that he engaged in corrupt acts before passing or before the incapacitation—and the effect it will have on his successor? I believe we have to critically examine this option to curb corruption.
My grandmother gave me an eyewitness account of one such encounter where a woman died instantly after the Tegare Priest had revealed a wrong attitude she had displayed during the performance on one of the days scheduled for Tegare spirit manifestation.
According to her story, the Priest, after he had been possessed by the spirit, declared that for what the woman had done, he would not forgive her and that he would kill. Instantly, according to my grandmother, the lady fell down suddenly and she died—just like what happened to Ananias and his wife Sapphira in Acts Chapter 5.
NB: ‘CHANGE KOTOKA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT TO KOFI BAAKO
By Laud Kissi-Mensah
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