George Aggudey's goof (with voice link)

It was an ordinary political day for the Citi FM journalist, Richard Sky. His remit was to cover the filing of nomination papers by Convention People's Party (CPP) aspirants.
Turns out that this was the last official day for the payment of the 1000GH cedis (roughly 1000 US Dollars) filing fee by presidential candidates of the once dominant party.

The Party has seen some renewed life with 5 candidates showing interest in contesting for the ticket. Of the 5, Dr Paa Kwesi Nduom was the only man to have paid by this time.

Enter Prof. Agyeman Badu Akosah, the eloquent 6 foot something pathologist, and former Director General of the Ghana Health Service. A charismatic fellow, his suave and poise was not lost on the scores of pressmen there gathered as they took pleasure in "grilling" him on a variety of issues from his chances of winning to his tenure working at the health service. All these questions he answers without blinking an eye, managing to even chastise the government he worked under briefly. Good stuff!!

Lawyer Bright Akwetey is soon to follow, he's neatly dressed in a suit with a pocket square, a rare departure from the typically "African" attire "Nkrumahists" have unofficially christened as their jersey. He can be pardoned, perhaps he's from the courtroom - the litigant that he is, and had to dash to the CPP headquarters to make it there before 6pm.
He answers questions about how an Akwetey presidency will deal with this and that, from journalists who are all too well aware that this reputable lawyer is just adding up to the numbers.

Dr Kwaku Osafo is an academic with unrivaled international exposure. He has great ideas for the country Ghana and appears sincere with his plans to improve the lives of Ghanaians. He's also quite well-respected and looks like someone who would be a good economic advisor to a socialist president. Guess the surprise then, when Dr Osafo arrived at the party headquarters on a motorbike! Yes, a motorbike. His reason? He had had some delays in getting his tax clearance and to beat the notorious Accra traffic, had to jump on a motorbike! Had he been a Rawlings, he might have scored a few populist political points, you know?

George Oposika (money cutter: in native Dangme dilect) Aguddey, the CPP presidential candidate in the 2004 elections, was also there to file his nomination. Accompanied by jubilant supporters, Mr. Aguddey, who had barely 1% of the total votes cast in 2004, arrived in a Lincoln and clad in a tee-shirt; your ordinary rich guy.
As if the irony of a self-professed socialist driving a fancy car was not enough, Mr Aguddey's answers to questions from the press and his subsequent tantrum were shocking.

Question: What will be your Campaign Strategy?
Answer: I'm just going to delegates for confirmation.
Q: What do you mean?
A:Ive already won, I'm the incumbent, I'm just going for confirmation.

This back and forth with Citi FM's Richard Sky goes on with the journalist probing for more specifics and the aspirant displaying his evasive best ... Until:

Q: There appear to be a lot of marketable candidates in the race this time round, does that bother you?
A: Go and ask those who voted against the party's candidate the last time round why they did so.
Q: And who are you referring to?
A: I say go and ask those who told people to vote skirt and blouse against the party the last time round, these questions!
Q: People say you are not marketable.
A:(Raising his voice) It is you who is not marketable! It is people like you, you join other political parties and come to the CPP head office to ask stupid questions.
Q: People say you don't stand a chance...
A: (Interrupting) What chance do you have in life? You tell me? I am better placed in life than you, you these journalists asking me stupid questions about my chances.... I have told you in particular to go and ask the man who worked against the party these questions...You annoy me so much(moving towards Mr. Sky) were it not for something you would see!

The exchange is interspersed with cheers from excited supporters and insults on the "impudent"reporters who dared provoke the show boy.

Some colleague reporters manage to whisk Mr Sky away from the premises amidst insults.

Listen to voice clip

Mr. Aguddey's tantrums may not have done his campaign any good, but at least he's done Ghanaians a favour by revealing his true colors a long time before congress day, and for that we thank him.

Ghana's Public Accounts Committee goes public

This week has seen an unprecedented move by the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament to hold public hearings on the 2004 Auditor General's report.

I truly commend parliament for such an audacious move, which to me really makes public, the work of the committee.
Apart from the obvious awareness this creates for the work of the legislature, the revelations have been startling and amazing!!!
So far, three ministries, the Ministry of Tourism & Diaspora relations, Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Road Transport, have faced the probing questions of committee members, with the result being instructive insights into the sometimes haphazard manner spending is made at the concerned.
You may want to follow these links for more ....

The Ministry of Local government is taking its turn today, with the Attorney General set to appear to answer questions on how a docket on an offending official at the transport ministry was never acted upon.
More

Ghana's Political plot thickens

The Cockerel emerges
So much happened this previous weekend on Ghana's political front.
Dr Papa Kwasi Nduom, the CPP M.P. for K.E.E.A and immediate past Minister for Public Sector Reform did a massive campaign at Saltpond with a pledge to fight poverty.
The function was quite well-attended and enjoyed quite good media coverage.
If the massive following the launch got is anything to go by then the Convention People's Party is in for good times.
I wish them well.

The Elephant stumbles
In the meantime the ruling NPP reportedly held a crisis meeting for aspirants at the seat of the presidency, the castle Osu upon the request of some elders of the party to address issues of party cohesion after the December 22 2007 congress to elect a flag bearer.
The meeting reportedly saw the president deny(again) that he was supporting any particular candidate.
Its in the party's own interest to deal with the issue of perceived presidential support for Alan Kyeremanteng, there's also the issue of which persons would qualify to vote on he said day, a matter which if not handled carefully could lead to serious problems on congress day.

He also wants to be president?

With all due respect to Dr Kwame Nkrumah, the CPP and all other Nkrumaists, i seriously think some more stringent criteria need to be set forth to determine who can hold themselves out as being interested in being the party that led Ghana to independence's flag bearer.
I have interviewed about a dozen men in the past few months who have all given good reason why they ought to be given the chance to lead either the CPP of the ruling NPP to the next election.

The latest interview however left me underwhelmed to put it mildly.
Dr. Fred Akuffo is a Medical practitioner with 35 years of experience, but for ***'S sake his ideas don't have to be 10 times older than that?

His motivation for joining the CPP race was a sermon preached in church on Sunday! Granted, but how on earth does he suppose that counting and naming Ghanaians would be beginning the end of our problems.
According to him, that has been the secret of all advanced countries.
Fine we need better identification of both people and landmarks etc, but please, lets stop oversimplifying Ghana's problems and see how we can inject more seriousness into the noble race to take over from JAK.

The man is nephew to President of the 2nd republic, Edward Akuffo-Addo and cousin to SMC II Head of State, Gen. FWK Akuffo, but having spent an hour and half with him in this morning's interview, i think he should humbly take a back seat and write his reflections on Ghana. Period!!!!

From diplomacy to presidency?

Here's more on the newest aspirant! Dr Baffour Agyei-Bawuah
He came across as a thoughtful man with lots of good ideas for Ghana, but aren't they all?

Are they all telling us they need to be president to implement the "noble" ideas that they have?

For me the good thing about having 20 or so people falling over each other to lead the NPP to the 2008 elections is the fact that many more Ghanaians are patronizing domestic tourism.
Good Example.

So the Shiek lives?

The Citi Breakfast Show was quite interesting today.
I.C. Quaye Lives
The 1st interview was a verification of a front page story in the Daily Guide newspaper, to the effect that Greater Accra Regional Minister Shiek I.C.Quaye was well and strong and very alive, contrary to recent media reports that he was very very sick.
The Regional Minister stated emphatically that he had not been sick in the past few months and attributed the "wicked & mischievous lies" about his health to his political detractors.

I then had a quick promotional interview with a young man, Mahmoud Jajah, the CEO & Publisher of a Student Newspaper, called the student observer.
More on this remarkable young man later.

The major issue for the day was a continuation of the crusade on the poor quality of urban roads in the country.
The Department of Urban Roads was represented in the studio of 97.3 Citi FM by its Deputy Director in charge of maintenance, I.K. Mensah, who gave quite revealing answers about why many roads in the capiatal Accra, were in such a bad state.

I'll comment more on his specific responses later , but suffice it to say for now that the gentleman appears to be on top of his job.


My final interview was with the latest entrant into the NPP Presidential aspiration race, Dr Baffour Agyei-Bawuah, Ghana's Ambassador to Japan. He is a quietly articulate gentleman with lots of good ideas, but...

I guess, i'd have to create a podcast of my show on this blog so watch out for this soon.
I'll certainly do this within the month.

Ghana's mobile headache

The major question one might want to ask is " to what extent is the NCA committed to enforcing its regulations in terms of service quality."
There is a fear that that this warning by the authority is a knee-jerk reaction to the rising levels of complaints being voiced out against the two networks, especially MTN, in the media.
Having said that, we wait to see what happens after 30 days in the event that the network quality of the two networks does not improve. That is if we know what the said improvement entails in the 1st place.

Most Terrible Networks?

Today i'll comment briefly on my show and mention a few points i think are noteworthy.

NCA BEGINS TO BARK!!!
The National Communications Authority at a press conference yesterday gave a 30 day ultimatum to the two leading mobile telephony service providers, MTN and Onetouch, to either get their act together or face severe sanctions.

Is Dr Paa Kwasi Nduom justified?

Dr Nduom was not happy with my interview style and actually complained on air that i had chosen to focus on negative things about him, i tried to explain myself but there's no telling how that went down with listeners.
All i can say in response is that i thought initially that he was evading the question of whom he supported in the 2004 presidential election, whether his party's Aggudey or the NPP J.A. Kufour.
In the end i made a promise to get him back into the studio to do another interview, at which he'd have a chance to share with listeners his plans for the CPP and for Ghana.

The last piece of the show was dedicated to discussing the thorny issue of land ownership in Ghana.

On the Ghana Presidential Pageant and Terrible Accra Roads

So Dan Botwe though that publicizing such a meeting in the press was counterproductive to the cause of the NPP since it created the (false) impression that there was some crisis in the NPP, plus the advertised issues have on a number of occasions been discussed by the leadership of the party.

Even before the Dan Botwe interview, i had urged listners to send me sms messages reporting bad roads, or roads in ruins as i called them, so we could ask the "appropriate authorities" what they were doing about them.
The response was overwhelming, roads all the way from Nsawam to Spintex Road had pot holes, pot wells etc, the rains had exposed the shabby nature of the constructions.
My efforts at getting an official comment on why so many roads had been exposed got me the Deputy Minister for Road Transport, the honorabe Magnus Opare Asamoah, MP for Akuapem South.
His comments were to the effect that the responsibility of monitoring and maintenance of urban roads lay with the Depatrment of Urban Roads, noting that although they propbably had taken notice of the state of many of our urban roads in Ghana, it was not advisable to attempt to repair them in the rainy season, since in his view that would amount to " putting plaster on a wet skin."

He however gave the assurance that the governement was aware of the poor state of some urban roads and was putting plans in place to addres the situation.

Then came the interview for the day with CPP MP, Dr. Papa Kwasi Nduom.

Ghana's President to meet Presidential Aspirants??

It was quite exciting today on the Citi Breakfast Show.
There was a healthy mix of politics, social/community issues and current affairs.
After the usual newspaper review with news editor Fred Chidi, and the Biz News with Ebenzer Amankwah as well as Sport with Sammy Bartels; i had a current affairs interview with one of the 20 NPP Presidential hopefuls, former General Secretary Dan Botwe.
The interview was for him to react to a story in the Statesman Newspaper to the effect that the President of Ghana had summoned all the NPP presidential hopefuls to a meeting at the castle to among other things discuss, " how to keep the campaign clean," and whether or not the President was suporting any particular candidate.

Dan Botwe told listners that he was not aware of anty such meeting scheduled for midday, wednesday. He also did not see the essence of capturing such a story....

More of the same

This is your's truly on the day i started this.

More of the same

As they say habit is more powerful than desire! I really want to do this on a regular basis, but like many things, its easier said than done.
I hope to make the time to update this regularly with relevant info. It does appear to be an exciting

Bernard the blogger

I also think today, being the 10th day of the 10th month of the year 2007 is an auspicious day to begin such an exercise. 10 being a number for prosperity, while 7 is a perfect number....i think these are signs of good things to come.

My show(the Citi Breakfast Show) today was quite explosive!

Day One

Well, here goes,
Today i actually get to start this after months of procrastination.
I must say a big thank you to Emmanuel Bensah and Kwame Ahiabenu, these guys took me through the basic of blogging and i must say i'm gratful.

On a first day like this, one would not have too much to say. So lets just start by telling why i want to do this.
I think blogging is definately the future for the profession i find myself in, i.e. journalism; being a broadcast journalist at 97.3 Citi FM, my life revolves around communicating ideas to what i consider to be a perceptive audience; in that regard, any chance to share ideas and thoughts with forward-thinking people is definately on!!!