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Opinions of Monday, 23 July 2012

Columnist: Jackson, Margaret

NDC Must Avoid Boadu-Ayeboafoh’s Bait

By Margaret Jackson

July 20, 2012

Mr. Yaw Boadu-Ayeboafoh, General Manager of Newspapers of the Graphic Communications Group Limited (GCGL), is a known fiercest critic of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) government. In fact, Boadu-Ayeboafoh who has used his weekly column in the Daily Graphic to load on the NDC since President Mills assumed office in 2009 is a well-known devotee of the New Patriotic Party (NPP).

Readers would recall that Boadu-Ayeboafoh has never written any positive thing about the NDC nor has he ever condemned anything from the NPP quarters. Even when Kennedy Agyapong, NPPs Member of Parliament for Assin North, made his inflammatory statement in which he charged the Ashantis to slaughter Ewes and Gas and was arrested and detained at the Police Headquarters, Boadu-Ayeboafoh did not see anything wrong with what Agyapong said.

To the horror of many Ghanaians, Boadu-Ayeboafoh used his column to rather condemn the police who tried to restrain the NPP supporters who converged at the Police Headquarters to demand the release of Kennedy Agyapong but went on rampage to cause destruction of property.

What concerned Boadu-Ayeboafoh at the time was the supposed “force” that the police used to restrain the NPP supporters but not the property the NPP supporters were destroying nor the inflammatory speech spewed by Agyapong which had the propensity to plunge the country into a needless war.

Even when the behaviour and partiality of Boadu-Ayeboafoh was hugely exposed this man has not changed but continues to use the state-owned newspaper, the Daily Graphic, to project his NPP whilst the NDC continues to be on the receiving end.

Ladies and gentlemen, would you therefore, believe Yaw Boadu-Ayeboafoh if he asks the NDC to cooperate with the Daily Graphic to make coverage of its 2012 political campaigns more engaging and informed to the benefit of readers?

Yaw Boadu-Ayeboafoh who heads all the various newspapers of the GCGL has come out with a so-called program dubbed; “GCGL Project 2012,” which aims at focusing election coverage on issues and engage political parties more meaningfully. Even though the NDC is reported to have attended the maiden meeting instigated by Yaw Boadu-Ayeboafoh to outline the so-called GCGL Project 2012, I am happy that the NDC is yet to sign off on that project.

This is a project that would never benefit the NDC in any shape or form. In fact, it is a project that Boadu-Ayeboafoh is going to use to further project his NPP during the election coverage for the 2012 elections.

I am therefore, appealing strongly to the NDC to boycott that so-called project, because Boadu-Ayeboafoh has nothing good to offer the NDC. We are all witnesses to how the Daily Graphic has been used for the past three and a half years to project the agenda of one particular party to the dismay of the rest.

The NDC does not or will not need the Daily Graphic to coast to victory, because the paper’s favoritism to one particular party, the NPP is known to all Ghanaians. This up-coming election has more to do with leg work and the party that is able to let voters see what they have accomplished and what they can further do, will surely coast to victory.

Mr. Yaw Boadu-Ayeboafoh should not attempt to do any window dressing with the view to redeeming his image since this strategy will not wash. The NDC is better off by keeping away from any project spearheaded by Boadu-Ayeboafoh.

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