Agyenim-Boateng Is A �Stupid Fool� Says Nana Akomea�As The Two Clash On JoyFM

There was drama in the studios of an Accra-based commercial television station, MultiTV, where the intellectual discourse of JoyFM's high-profile news analysis programme on Saturday, Newsfile, was beamed live, degenerated into the spewing forth of expletives between two very prominent individuals, albeit from opposing sides of the political divide. The war of vituperative erupted when the Communications Director for the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) and Member of Parliament (MP) for Okaikoi South, Hon. Nana Akomea, minced no words in describing a Deputy Minister for Tourism, James Agyenim Boateng, �a stupid fool�. The honourable MP felt the deputy minister had denigrated him by depicting him as an �unintelligent� person, and his repeated call for a retraction went unheeded. The verbal altercation begun when the Deputy Tourism Minister described Nana Akomea as �a shameful-ridiculous� person for spearheading a press conference and alleging that a Deputy Minister for Information, Baba Jamal, under the aegis of government plans to use state funds to induce Journalists to embellish and distort stories to enhance the chances of the NDC ahead of the 2012 general elections. The Communications Director for the NPP first took his turn to speak to the issue of the infamous "Baba Jamal" tape and called for a voice expert to authenticate whose voice it was on that tape. But the Deputy Minister for Tourism, when asked to express his views, said it was a bit strange for him to fathom how a member of parliament in the person of Nana Akomea could make such a preposterous allegation, when he (Akomea) personally knows that the voice on the tape is not that of Baba Jamal. �...You find a Member of Parliament, a Director of Communications of the opposition political party who holds a press conference, denigrates a deputy minister of information, runs him down, runs a whole government machinery down; makes serious allegations as wanting to bribe and corrupt journalist. He sits on a platform like this, you give him the opportunity to prove the very issues that he calls a press conference and speaks to, then he says that lets find an expert to establish the authenticity of the tape. What kind of shameful conduct is this?...I hate to say this but I think I must. This is the most shameful, ridiculous limit I have seen a Director of Communications�and Nana Akomea did this as Director of Communications for his party and I think it is the most shameful ridiculous limit I have seen a political figure descend to,� James Agyenim-Boateng said brazenly. He further stated that taking a closer look at the demeanor of Nana Akomea when asked to justify the assertions that government plans to bribe journalists, he can boldly say that �he (Akomea) could not confidently articulate his position on the matter�. �Nana Akomea and his likes, ought not be involved in an enterprise like this� I can�t leave him out,� he said.