"Blame Mills For Insults�

WILLIAM MANFUL-Sam, Communications Officer of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the Effia-Kwesimintsim constituency says President Mills should be blamed for the upsurge in the politics of insults in the country. According to him, the President had purportedly failed to reprimand and call to order elements within the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) government, who insult and denigrate members of the NPP especially its flag bearer, Nana Akufo-Addo. Reacting to the verbal altercation between the NPP Communications Director, Nana Akomea and James Agyenim-Boateng, deputy Minister of Tourism on Joy Fm�s News file program last Saturday, Manful-Sam described the whole episode as unfortunate. �What the NPP and all Ghanaians want the Mills administration to do is to spell out its strategies for improving the lives of Ghanaians and stop the unnecessary behavior,� he said. Mr. Manful-Sam described the culture of insults and foul language being used by the NDC government as primitive and completely unhelpful. �I believe it is time NDC government officials realized that their first mandate is to deliver improvement in the lives of people and therefore they must get on with that business and stop this pointless attempt at always insulting people.� Manful-Sam noted that what Ghanaians expected from the government were clear strategies to deal with the country�s current economic hardships and give them hope rather than going on an insulting spree against NPP activists. A war of insults erupted at the radio when Agyenim-Boateng allegedly insinuated that Nana Akomea and NPP activists who recently organized a press conference on the alleged �Baba Jamal tape� were unintelligent. Nana Akomea then labeled Agyenim-Boateng �a stupid fool� after the latter failed to retract his comment. In an interview with Daily Guide, Manful-Sam who says he listened to the Joy FM programme condemned the incident. He however said Nana Akomea was highly provoked into angrily responding to the NDC representative after Agyenim-Boateng failed to withdraw his comments. He therefore called on President Mills to reprimand his ministers any time they insult their political opponents instead of merely calling on them to stop insulting others. �The other time, it was the NDC�s Kobby Acheampong insulting NPP�s Sir John. Hannah Bissiw also insulted Nana Addo sometime ago and another time it was Stan Dogbe insulting Togbe Gabusu, but in all these instances the President did not do anything about it,� he alleged. He said the NPP had observed that the NDC government had adopted a culture of indecent language in public discourse and had relegated their core duty of improving the people�s living standards to the background. Manful-Sam said currently, the livelihoods of ordinary people had been destroyed following the unavailability of LP Gas and parents were also anxious about the re-opening of school for SHS students. �There is discontent on the labour front. Businesses of both formal and informal sectors are suffering because both the purchasing power and consumption have dropped,� he added. He said the NPP would continue to criticize government when necessary and to appeal to Ghanaians for the opportunity to govern and improve upon its previous performance which is much better compared to that of the NDC.