Freelance Journalist Manasseh Azure Awuni has taken on Member of Parliament for Bolgatanga Central constituency, Isaac Adongo over his article on the Agyapa Royalties Agreement shared by former President John Dramani Mahama.
In his view, the content of the article is offensive to people of the Akyem tribe stating that he will be offended if the author and other politicians from his tribe are tagged with the name of the tribe because of their wrongful acts.
Manasseh Azure Awuni opined that Mr. Adongo could have criticized the government over acts of nepotism without dragging the name of the ethnic group of the officials involved into his criticism.
The freelance Journalist who was reacting to former president Mahama’s defense of Mr. Adongo on the article and the subsequent sharing of same asserted that the content of the article is indiscreet.
Manasseh Azure wrote “The author of the article, Isaac Adongo, could have stalked about nepotism without bringing in the name of an ethnic group because not all Akyems approve of or are beneficiaries of the Agyapa deal”.
He added that “I will be offended if Isaac Adongo and a group of politicians do something wrong or are involved in a deal and someone refers to them as the ‘Frafra Mafia’ or ‘Frafra Sakawa Boys’.
On former president Mahama’s defense of the content of the article and his sharing of same, the multiple award winning Journalist described Mr. Mahama defense as “weak” and “irrational equalization.” He argued that tagging the government officials involved in the Agyapa deal with the name of their tribe is inappropriate since it is not the entire people of the tribe who is involved in or approve of the deal.
While admonishing the former president against defending his actions, he stated the former president should have exercised circumspection in his criticism since he is a statesman.
In an interview on Woezor TV, former president Mahama rejected allegations by president Akuf-Addo that the article authored by Isaac Adongo who is MP for Bolgatanga Central Constituency is ethnocentric and Mahama sharing of same is an endorsement of ethnocentric comments against the Akyem tribe which the president belongs.
Mr. Mahama also criticized the president following the latter’ expression of outrage over the article and the sharing of same by the former. He contended that the president has no moral right to be outraged over such comments since he (president) has a history of passing unsavory comments on others.
