Youth Cautions Wassa Amenfi West MP

Mr. Adu Gyamfi, an Executive member of Wassa Amenfi Youth Association in Sekondi Takoradi, has appealed to the Member of Parliament for Amenfi West, Hon. Abraham Kofi Asante, not to allow his position as an MP to eat into his head.

"It would not do Asante any good to be seen as a bully or impatient when dealing with the press and his constituents, " he pointed.

Gyamfi, who is also known as K.K.B.K.(Kakrabekawu), who was speaking to Chronicle in Accra after reading about the MP's verbal assault of the Chronicle reporter in Parliament recently, cautioned him to behave as a honourable member if he really wants to achieve his goal as a good politician.

"As a public officer he must know how to deal with people and the media," Gyamfi pointed out.

Gyamfi, who recounted the ordeal he went through at the hands of Kofi Asante when he (Kofi Asante) was the District Chief Executive(DCE) at Wassa Amenfi, noted that if the MP does not change his body attitude he would achieve nothing as a politician.

"I quite remember that due to Asante's impatience in listening to people, in 1995 when I led farmers to present a petition to him about the destruction of our farms by Leo Shield, a gold prospecting company, he refused to accept our petition and drove us away.

He refused to even take our petition,' he stated.

"As a public officer one must know how to accommodate people who may approach you with all kinds of issues," the Amenfi youth observed.

Gyamfi said after Asante had refused to accept their petition he later engaged BNI 's operatives to harass him, simply because he led the farmers to petition the government about the destruction of their farms by a mining company.

Asante did not end his harassment there, but sadly he also ensured that my personal secretary, Samuel Badioo, who was a student at the University College of Education, in Kumasi Tanoso campus, was also picked up while on Campus by the operatives of the BNI.

According to Kakarabekawu, the image of the student was nearly tarnished because an impression had been created that he (Badioo) was a criminal, hence his arrest by the BNI.

"He must improve on how he relates with his neighbours, until this is done some of us would continue to see him as someone who has no patience for listening to his neighbours," he advised.

"Due to that single act of Asante in refusing our petition, the government has to send Mr Eben A. Sackey, the then Chief Inspector of Mines, all the way from Accra to Asakragua to deal with the farmers, instead of him the DCE," Gyamfi added.

If one should think of the taxpayers money which was used by Chief Mines Officers from Accra to Wassa because of somebody's impatience to handle an issue which could have been dealt with at the district level, it speaks volumes of how we must all relate well with our neighbours irrespective of one's political affiliation.

Even during last year's elections Asante physically assaulted a young man, a certain Kwasi Ntiako at Asuo Shiam, and that case is still pending at Asakragua Police Station because he was not patient to seek the truth when someone lied to him about the victim, Chronicle was told.

When Chronicle reached Asante at press time yesterday afternoon, he said he was not aware of any petition from the farmers to him when he was DCE for Wassa Amenfi.

"I don't remember anything about any Gold prospecting company. There has never been any Gold prospecting company in the area," he asserted.

Asante also claimed that he does not even know Gyamfi or KKBK, let alone his secretary, Baidoo, to have used BNI to harass them.

"You Chronicle people are fond of concocting stories against me," he charged, adding that the paper recently published that he had fathered a baby and abandoned him and his mum.