Dr. Kobina Arthur Kennedy has stated that the defense being put up by government communicators with regards to President Mahama’s ‘yen tie obia’ statement, amounts to rubbing salt into the wounds of the people of the Ashanti Region.
According to the 2008 New Patriotic Party (NPP) campaign strategist, it would be better for the Mahama Administration to come clean on the issue and further apologize for the President’s unsavory comments against the people of Ashanti Region.
To him, it would not do the government any good putting up a defense to this issue, giving the fact that President Mahama would be going back to the region soon.
“…If I were the President, I would issue an apology to the people of Ashanti even if that was not what I meant to say, before I step there over the weekend,” Dr. Arthur Kennedy said.
He issued this advice during a telephone interview with NEAT FM to interrogate the subsequent issues surrounding the tape, on which the President was heard suggesting the people of Ashanti Region are ungrateful.
A tape emerged after the President’s three-day working visit to the Ashanti Region, where he inspected a number of ongoing projects and also cut sods for a few of them.
What has made the headlines, however, is the tape on which President Mahama heard saying, even if his Administration tarred all the roads of the Region in gold, the people in the region would not appreciate it.
Meanwhile, government has refuted the allegation that the President has been disrespectful to the Ashanti region because the tape in circulation is a doctored one.
The Government of Ghana has therefore released, what it describes as the authentic recording of the President’s statements in Kumasi, though a cross section of the general public have questioned the authenticity of the new tape.