Minority leader and MP for Suame, Hon. Osei-Kyei Mensah-Bonsu says he is not ready to engage his colleague MP for Asikuma-Odoben-Brakwa constituency, Hon. P. C Appiah-Ofori in any verbal brawl because he considers the latter old enough to be his uncle.

The Minority leader said even though he considered the comments made against him by his honorable colleague MP as highly uncomplimentary, he is not interested in engaging Hon. Appiah-Ofori in any public verbal scuffle - “because he is older than me.” “I don’t want to engage in any unpleasant exchanges with P.C because I consider him as a man who is old enough to be my uncle; besides, I was brought up and trained in a decent home, so it would be uncustomary for me to insult someone older than me,” Hon. Mensah-Bonsu Fox FM in Kumasi.

The eloquent and soft-spoken Minority leader, in a bid to downplay the derogatory comments made about him by Hon. Appiah-Ofori, posited his reaction with a local maxim - “If you are in the bathhouse and a mad man comes to take your clothes away, you don’t come out naked and chase him.” Yesterday’s edition of The Chronicle carried a front page story in which Hon. Appiah-Ofori, the controversial NPP MP, who has also earned the accolade as an anti-corruption crusader, launched a scathing attack on the Minority leader and described him as a stupid man because he (Hon. Mensah-Bonsu) was the brain behind the call for his expulsion from the party.

In the said publication, the anti-corruption crusader also threatened to strip his Party and particularly the minority leader naked if the executives of the party carried out the threat and moved to expel him from the party, following certain bribery allegations he made against his colleague NPP MPs in the house. According to Hon. Appiah-Ofori, he abused the Minority leader because he misconducted himself and was the one who first disparaged him.

Even though Hon. Appiah-Ofori defended his comments about the Minority leader and said he had no regret referring to Hon. Mensah-Bonsu in such disparaging way when the two clashed on the local radio station yesterday. The Minority leader, however, watered down the expected, when he politely told the host after he was asked if he had any reaction to the abusive language used against him by Hon. Appiah-Ofori, by saying “I don’t want to condescend so low by engaging my honorable colleague in any verbal fisticuffs, I respect him as an elderly man who is old enough to be my uncle.”

But the well acclaimed anti-corruption campaigner retorted “If you know I am your uncle why did you insult me, do you think that you can expel me from the party, no way.” Asked if he truly loves the NPP as a party on whose ticket he was elected to Parliament, he snapped “why are you asking me such a question, do you think if I don’t like the party I would spend such a huge sum of money to campaign and maintain the seat for the NPP in the past three elections.”

According to him, he was being victimized and reprimanded because he has chosen to speak the truth and expose certain things he finds wrong within the party, adding “I am ready to face any consequences.” He said it was about time the acts of hypocrisy and the culture of impunity were nipped in the bud, saying “Ghanaians must desist from politicizing issues and instead face the realities.” But the Minority leader, who adopted a calm posture during the on air cross-fire, said he was patiently waiting for the report of the Disciplinary Committee set up by the party to investigate the conduct of the Asikuma-Odoben-Brakwa MP and indicated that if at the end of the day, the allegations are found to be true, we will all commend him, but if the contrary is the case, then the proper punishment shall be meted out to him.