Kumasi on Citi FM has suddenly made him the number one public enemy in the Garden City.
Indeed, the beleaguered minister would regret opening his mouth too wide to insult residents of Kumasi, as dwellers of the city and its surrounding areas have made him a target of insults.
Residents of the city who called into radio stations in the Garden City on Wednesday morning took Mr. Acheampong to the cleaners, as they insulted him with several unprintable words.
One of the aggrieved Kumasi inhabitants, Kwasi Kyei, speaking on Kessben FM said, “He is stupid”, adding that by his actions, the deputy Minister had proven beyond doubt that he was notfit for public office.
Other equally peeved Kumasi residents, including women who shared their opinion on radio talk shows, went to the extent of describing the minister as a ‘villager’ whose behaviour befitted the Stone Age era.
The deputy Minister for Tourism on Tuesday called the New Patriotic Party (NPP) General Secretary, Lawyer Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie aka ‘Sir John’, uncivilized.
Mr. Acheampong went on to tell Sir John, who had lived most of his life in the Ashanti regional capital of Kumasi, to broaden his horizon now that he had moved to Accra.
The irate Kumasi residents asked whether Kumasi deserved to be described as a village by the minister, wondering whether Mr. Acheampong would ever muster the courage to visit Kumasi in his life again.
They stated that the deputy Minister’s remarks were ample proof that the National Democratic Congress (NDC) administration did not deserve to be at the helm of affairs of the country.
The residents warned the NDC not to come to Kumasi and campaign for their votes during the 2012 polls since a minister in the NDC administration had referred to them as villagers.
They thus urged the entire Ghanaian populace, especially residents of Kumasi, to vote massively against the NDC in the 2012 polls so that the likes of Kobby Acheampong would not get the opportunity to insult innocent people.
Meanwhile, the Asante Students Union of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) has strongly registered its displeasure about Kobby Acheampong’s statement and has thus called on President Mills to remove him from office with immediate effect.
“This action, if carried by the president, we believe would redeem the image of the country and all who by Mr. Acheampong’s actions have been dented,” they argued.
The union said the people of Kumasi and for that matter Asanteman do not have any political relationship with Sir John, so they found it extremely unfortunate for Kobby Acheampong, who ideally should have known better, to insult them without provocation.
A release, jointly signed by Fosu Samuel and Kwame Sarfo-Adu, president and secretary of the union, thus warned Mr. Acheampong to immediately retract the statement and apologize to the people of Kumasi.
They also urged the minister to offer the same unqualified apology to the entire Asanteman and cocoa farmers, including all those Mr. Acheampong referred to as uncivilized.
The Asante Students Union admonished politicians to be circumspect with their utterances so as to avert propagating ethnic sentiments which had the potential of having negative repercussions on the country.
From I.F. Joe Awuah Jnr., Kumasi