General News of Thursday, 12 January 2023

Source: classfmonline.com

Ken Agyapong Jr: I once used my father's name to get out of 'trouble' but 'it didn't work'

Kennedy Agyapong with his son Kennedy Agyapong with his son

Kennedy Agyapong Jr has narrated a story about how he once used his father's name to get out of trouble but it did not work.

One of the founders of Afrochella, now rebranded as AfroFuture, he is the son of the Member of Parliament (MP) for Assin Central Kennedy Ohene Agyapong.

"I remember when I first came to Ghana, 2014, I was going back [to America] for holidays," he told Andy Dosty on Accra-based Hitz FM, Tuesday, January 10, 2023. "I had a visa but I didn't know when they stamp the visa it says '60 Days' but then you have to renew it."

He had reasoned because he had a five-year visa, he "could go [and] come," as he pleased.

"So, this is the first time I used his [my father's] name and it backfired," he recalled and illustrated with a story at the Kotoka International Airport (KIA), Accra.

"I was at the airport and the Immigration Officer informed me that my visa had expired. I insisted it said five years but he showed me that the 60 days I had been given had elapsed," he said.

Kennedy Jr "got upset," and challenged the officer. According to him, at this point, and for the first time, he used the famed line; "Do you know who I am?"

When the officer did not budge, "I called Honourable [his politician father]," he demonstrated being on a phone call with his right hand.

His father, a renowned stateman, asked that he would be put on loudspeaker.

"The officer said [to my father], 'He overstayed'," the 33-year-old Kencity Media Limited boss recalled. "I had been in Ghana for one year and there was a penalty and he [the officer] said, 'It's US$360, the penalty'."

To the young man's astonishment, his father replied the officer saying: "Oh, let him pay the penalty."

Andy reacted with a belly laugh. Kennedy Jr chuckled as he repeated his father's words.

"I'm thinking he was going bail me out, but, no, no, no, he told me to pay," he stressed.

He indicated that Terminal 2 was for intertional flights at that time and the Immigration Officer was professional; he did not ask for any bribe.

"They took the [penalty] money and gave me a receipt and everything, and I was like, 'Oh, man! It didn't work," he laughed.

Andy expressed surprise at his father not intervening.

"That was the first and the last, I never used his name again," Kennedy Jr replied, laughing a bit and shifting in his seat.