“Whoever decided to play this song did not do the President any good; where is the sense in this? What did they want to achieve by playing this song? It is sad especially in this difficult times…”
The Managing Editor of the Insight newspaper, Kwesi Pratt Jnr made this remark in connection with the brouhaha over the playing of Daddy Lumba’s Yentie Obiaa hit track during President John Dramani Mahama’s tour of the Ashanti Region.
Contributing to a panel discussion on Peace FM’s premium morning show ‘Kokrokoo’ with host Kwami Sefa Kayi, Kwesi Pratt further expressed surprise at the way government appointees have grown a fondness for creating controversies for the President and “whenever that happens they leave the stage for the President to receive all the blows. The President should be the last person to fall…”
“There is no way you can explain or understand this. The worse is how government communicators are trying to justify this,” he indicated.
Doctored and original tape
Commenting on the alleged doctoring of President Mahama’s message Kwesi Pratt said “there is no doubt there are two tapes and the two cannot all be doctored. Definitely, one has been tampered with.”
Kwesi Pratt also indicated that instead of lambasting the President for comments he had made during his tour of the Ashanti Region, critics should rather query “why anybody will try to doctor or change what the President said?”
“It is clear that the motive behind the doctoring was to create political mischief and a bad name for the President…but it is time for this to stop.” he added.
However, commenting on the same issue, Anthony Abeyifa Karbo, Former National Youth Organiser of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) said whether or not the recording was doctored does not change the significance of what the President said.
According to him, if you juxtapose the content of the alleged original and doctored tape, the message the President was trying to put across was that ‘the people in Kumasi are not appreciative’.
He intimated that “we don’t care about whether the tape was doctored or not. The two are all bad case; the import is the same and it does not speak well of the President”