The New Patriotic Party (NPP) Member of Parliament (MP) for Adansi-Asokwa, Kobina Tahir Hammond says jeers directed at President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo by some youth at last Saturday’s Global Citizen Festival were undemocratic.
The lawmaker said the youth ought to be patient and desist from disrespecting knowledgeable elderly people because of politics.
Speaking to journalists on the matter on Tuesday, K.T. Hammond said the jeers were not warranted because the President was not on a political platform and only expressed satisfaction about the success of the festival.
Watch the video below;
Adansi Asokwa MP, KT Hammond reacts to the booing of President Akufo-Addo at the Global Citizen Festival over the weekend. pic.twitter.com/2fIUMrWZBx
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Reaction to jeers
Videos of the incident which were circulated showed sections of the crowd shouting “Away, away” when the President was speaking.
Reacting to the incident, the Deputy Director of Communications of the New Patriotic Party, Ernest Owusu Bempah in an opinion article accused the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) of orchestrating the jeers.
Mr Owusu Bempah said the NDC deliberately planted its supporters in the crowd to embarrass the President.
Meanwhile, the opposition NDC has dissociated itself from the booing but stressed that it reflected the “excruciating and frustrating times Ghanaians presently find themselves.”
In a press release signed by the Communications Officer of the party, Sammy Gyamfi, the NDC said it had no hand in the “embarrassment.”
“It bears reminding the ruling New Patriotic Party that the struggles of the youth are a microcosm of the daily ordeal of the Ghanaian people who must find ways to survive at a time inflation is 33.9%, with prices of goods and services skyrocketing every day,” the release said.
“The youth expressed in the clearest terms, the daily struggles of the vast majority of our people who wake up every passing day with no hope of where their next meal is going to come from.
“Those young people simply gave voice to our daily struggles with unbearable prices of fuel at the pumps, high cost of living in the country.”
