"President is paying for his past utterances", Alhaji Alhassan

An attempt by a group calling themselves the "Concerned Citizens" to do a public relations exercise for President Flt. Lt. Rawlings backfire when the organisers of their press conference, led by Prof. Abdallah Botchwey, who had once described the President and his men as "riff-rafts", could not answer most of the questions put to them by the press and other participants, writes the Ghanaian Chronicle.

The organisers did not seem to have a fore-knowledge of the President's own behaviour and public utterances that have engendered the hostility between him and a section of the press.

The Concerned Citizens' press statement, which was read by Nii Nikou Tsuru, Ajen Kotoku Mantse, was very critical of what it described as appalling insults hurled at the President and the first lady by a section of the independent press. Nii Tsuru likened the position of the President to that of a chief in the traditional Ghanaian society who should be respected.

Mr Oduro Kwarteng, a leading member of the NPP, countered that if a chief goes beyond bounds and exposes himself to public insults and ridicule he has himself to blame. He cautioned that the institution that will ignite the time-bomb on which Ghanaians have sat for a long time is the office of the President.

He noted that if the time bomb was detonated, the explosion would consume everybody irrespective of class, office or political allegiance, and called for a national forum to discuss the strained relations between the President and a section of the media.

Contributing too the debate, Alhaji Alhassan, a veteran journalist turned environmentalist said what is happening is the direct outcome of the President's own past and present utterances. He cited an incident at the Graphic Corporation during the Limann administration when Flt Lt Rawlings stormed the editorial office of the paper and lambasted them for not running down Limann's govt.

He said Flt Lt Rawlings even threatened the journalists including him (Alhassan) that should the opportunity avail itself again for him to come to power, he would kill all the journalists for being cowards. Alhaji Alhassan said that it sounds strange and myopic for the concerned group whom he labelled as surrogates of the NDC to shout themselves hoarse about insults directed at the President, and called the group to distinguish personal attacks from criticism of issues.