Kwesi Pratt.: I'll Go Hungry If Media Owners Stop Me From Speaking On Their Networks, But....

Seasoned journalist and Managing Editor of the Insight Newspaper, Kwesi Pratt Jnr., says he will go hungry if all radio and television stations in the country barred him from speaking on their platforms. Kwesi Pratt Jnr. was on Wednesday chucked out from the list of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDCs) communication team members assigned by the party to appear on the Cantonments-based Metro TV. For years now, the outspoken senior journalist has been a regular panelist on Metro TVs �Good Morning Ghana� political show with some claiming he was on the platform at the behest of government, but Mr. Pratt has on consistently denied being on that particular programme as a representative of the ruling party. Indeed on October 3rd last year, a verbal spat ensued between Mr Pratt and Director of Communications for the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), Nana Akomea, after the latter impliedly accused the former of advancing the cause of the NDC much better than articulating the objectives of the Convention People's Party (CPP) he Pratt belongs to. Tempers went an octave higher when in a swift response, the Insight newspaper managing editor emphatically stated that he had never represented the ruling party on the Metro TV platform and admonished Ghanaians not to read diabolically meanings into his convictions since he was just putting out the �truth�. �Over the past four years, the NDC has done �far far� better than the NPP in their eight year rule; that is my belief. When i say that, that is not speaking for the NDC, i'm only speaking the truth...As to why and how Metro TV invited me to participate in this programme, it is for your station to clear. I've never been told by Metro TV that i'm coming here to participate in the programme as a representative of any political party...If indeed Metro TV has made up its mind in collaboration with anybody that i'm speaking for any political party...i'm prepared to leave here...i think that this platform is so important that it should not be used for cheap political party propaganda, otherwise it's an insult to the people who listen to us...And if it the case that indeed Metro TV and anybody have conspired without my knowledge, to bring me here as a spokesperson of the NDC, i'm ready to walk out of this programme,� Kwesi Pratt said. Thus, it was quite a spectacle when the Insight Managing Editor by Producer of the show, that he had been replaced by the Communications Directorate of the NDC and was therefore turned away. His place was taken by the NDC Member of Parliament for Nanton, Murtala Mohammed.