David Oscar and George Quaye Clash Over GH Comedy

There have been several talks in the country that try to compare Ghanaian comedians to their fellow colleagues in Nigeria.

The little discussions I’ve had with some of my countrymen point to the fact that Nigerian comedians are far better than Ghanaian comedians. Their arguments are based on the fact that Ghanaian comedians do not learn in order to adapt themselves to various situations. I guess such was the opinion of George Quaye, a TV presenter and Public Relations Officer for Charter House.

For some time now, there have been misunderstandings between David Oscar – a Ghanaian comedian (popularly known for his comedy series – Laugh a Minute – on Viasat 1) – and George Quaye. Speaking on Neat FM’s Entertainment Ghana yesterday, David Oscar shed more light on the beef between the two.

According to him, George described Ghanaian comedians as ‘wack’ (without value) which did not go down well with him as a comedian. If such a careless statement had come from any other person, he wouldn’t have had any problem; but for someone like George who knows the challenges Ghanaian comedians are facing, such pronouncement should not have come from him.

“The reason why I was even more shocked because he made those comments was that this same George met me somewhere around 2011 or 2012 and asked me about Corporate Comedy Series. I told him how far we’ve come and was even telling him how difficult it was to raise sponsorships and all of those things.

So if this same man having had this conversation with me sits on his TV show and act oblivious to the fact that there are actively working comedians in the Ghanaian entertainment industry and say Ghanaian comedians are ‘wack’, then that to me is rather unfortunate”, David emphasized.

He believes that our system keeps on feeding Ghanaians with Nigerian contents and that explains why Ghanaians appreciate Nigerian comedians more.

However, George also pointed it out that he made that statement in order to ‘ginger’ Ghanaian comedians for them to sit up and improve on their skills. When asked if he was prepared to retract that statement, George had this to say:

“On the contrary, I would have hoped David Oscar would be grateful to the fact that the statement I made has probably pushed them to prove me wrong. I feel that those harsh words I used on them has angered and annoyed them so much to prove me wrong. So for David Oscar to refer to me as a worm, fool, and idiot on social media, I thank him.”

Conversely, David does not think those words motivated them to work extra harder since they (Ghanaian comedians) have been working very hard every day. So if George decides to treat him with contempt, he will likewise treat him with an equal measure of contempt.