John Jinapor To AMA Boss: �Swallow Your Pride And Apologise To Madam Theodosia Okoh'

A Deputy Minister for Energy and Petroleum has asked Mr. Alfred Oko Vanderpuiye, Accra Metropolitan Chief Executive to �swallow his pride� and apologise to Madam Theodosia Okoh, designer of Ghana�s National Flag. �It is very unfortunate but I am happy that the President has intervened and rectified the situation in such a short time. I will advise him to swallow his pride and accept his fault. Probably what he did was with a good intention but if it has turned out to be bad, he should apologise to the woman� John Jinapor was commenting on the hullabaloo surrounding the renaming of the National Hockey Pitch from "Theodosia Okoh National Hockey Stadium" to "John Evans Atta Mills National Hockey Stadium" and the intervention from the presidency asking the Accra Mayor to overturn that decision. The decision to rename the hockey stadium according to the AMA was to honour late President John Atta Mills and his contribution to the game. This was met with outrage from several people who felt it was unfair to take such honour from a woman who pioneered in the construction of the stadium until President John Dramani Mahama intervened. Speaking to Kwami Sefa-Kayi the Deputy Minister indicated that the 91-year-old woman served her country Ghana, well and so deserved the honour given to her; naming the stadium after her. �The question is, was that the appropriate way to honour Prof Mills? Now the focus has been shifted from the achievements of President Mills to that of renaming Hockey Pitch. Was that appropriate? All of these occurred because someone rushed in taking a decision. We could have avoided this. Knowing President Mills for who he is, he would not have loved this scenario. The woman served her motherland as a Ghanaian� he said. John is of the view that if the Accra Mayor is to exercise restraint and avoid rush in decision making, �some of these mistakes will be avoided�. He stated that even though Mr Vanderpuiye is known as a very hardworking person, he should be patient and remember that he is serving under a particular government. �Right from day one, I felt very very uncomfortable with the stance of Oko Vanderpuiye. I think he should be patient and not rush in taking decisions. He is very hardworking but if he does that, it will help him. He should know that he is serving under somebody. He didn�t contest an election, he was appointed and so in issues like this, he should make consultations� he counselled.