The controversy surrounding whether President John Evans Atta Mills was angry and actually said Ghanaians were complaining too much on his tour to the Ashanti region has taken a new twist as the President Spokesperson, Mahama Ayariga has accused sections of the media, topmost among them the state-owned newspaper Ghanaian Times of deliberately spreading malicious, mischievous and false propaganda against the president.
Obviously feeling scandalized by the media interpretation of President Mills� statement on his three day official tour to the region, the former Bawku Central MP declared �we will respond in equal measure to deliberate propaganda [aimed at] causing disaffection for the government.�
The Ghanaian Times newspaper on Saturday, November 7th, it would be recalled, carried on its front page a story with the headline �President Is Angry. Don�t Judge Us In 10 Months�. The first paragraph of the story said �President John Evans Atta Mills yesterday took a swipe at his critics who accuse his government of slow performance�� That publication by the paper clearly ruffled some feathers at the presidency as Mr. Ayariga was yesterday heard on a local radio station, Joy FM that �The President was simply responding to criticisms and he put it in a certain way and If anybody thinks that, that is an expression of anger, I can assure you I know the president�s mood very well and he was not any way angry.�
He said media reports that suggested that President Mills said Ghanaians were complaining too much were untrue and intended to cause disaffection against the government. He said the president was not happy with �some attempts to compare his 10-months tenure in office with some people�s eight years stay in office and he said it was inappropriate, unfair and just not logical, he never said Ghanaians complain too much, it is totally untrue, it is false, the president never, never made those statements. He was simply responding to some criticism and it is his right to respond to propaganda, nobody can take that right away from him.�
Confirming the publication carried by the Crusading Guide newspaper yesterday that the choice of Kumasi was �deliberate�, Mr. Ayariga said President Mills decided to respond to the criticisms in Kumasi �for very strategic reasons�. �He took his time, he waited until he was in Kumasi and he responded to those criticisms�, he emphasized.
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