Managing Editor of the Insight newspaper, Kwesi Pratt Jnr, says he will be the biggest fool on earth to help the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) win an election in the country.
His desire to see the NPP lose every general election it contests, is premised on what he claims to be death threats he received from some faceless individuals threatening to ‘bury him alive’ should the New Patriotic Party (NPP) regain power.
Contributing to a panel discussion on Radio Gold's Alhaji and Alhaji, on the secret audio tape circulating on both social and traditional media which allegedly captures the voice of former Finance Minister Yaw Osafo Marfo spewing tribal venom, Kwesi Pratt said somebody sent him a threatening text message a couple of days ago saying 'we will bury you alive when we come to power'.
Mr Pratt claims he received the text message on Friday, but failed to put out the phone number from which the message was sent.
The tape was apparently captured at a meeting between the one-time Finance Minister and the NPP’s Council of Elders in the Eastern region.
The voice, which mostly spoke in the local Twi language, but punctuated the delivery with some English, is heard bemoaning why even though about 90 percent of Ghana’s natural resources are concentrated in mainly Akan-speaking regions of the country, it is people who come from regions without resources that are governing the country.
“…You have all the resources, but you have no say in the management of your resources, and that is what is happening. Your development depends on the one who has no resources...You can’t say this openly,” he cautioned the Council members, but added that they are at liberty to talk about it among Asantes.
Commenting on Osafo Marfo's alleged ethnocentric comments, the seasoned journalist stressed that there is no way he would vote for the NPP, based on the content of the text message he (Pratt) received.
According to him, some members of the opposition NPP, have "by their actions and utterances decided that your party should never win elections again;...if you don't watch it, you are losing this elections again...not because the people of Ghana are satisfied with the performance of the Mahama administration or not satisfied, but because you make us frightened of you...and if that is the case and I don't come from any of these five regions (which Osafo Marfo spoke about on the tape) why should I vote for the NPP to come to power? Just before we came on this program, I showed Dr. Omane Boamah a text message I got from one of your activist only yesterday...a text message which says that if we (NPP) win the elections you will bury me...I must be a big fool...why should I sit down for the NPP to win the elections and then come and bury me?... You are losing the elections by attacking pillars of our society."
Speaking further, Kwesi Pratt wondered the whereabouts of some party stalwarts including the likes of former NPP General Secretary, Dan Botwe. He held the view that recent comments being made by some activists and leading members of the opposition party would not have been countenanced if the current Okere MP was active in the NPP.
“What happened to people like Dan Botwe, are they alive? How can they sit by and allow people to continue to misbehave in their party? I am highly, extremely disappointed by some of these statements coming from the party…I am ashamed as a Ghanaian because these are the things that can destroy the party," he said.
Mr. Yaw Osafo Marfo has, meanwhile, requested for a copy of the tape for thorough listening before making any comments, saying, even though he recalls speaking at a forum in the Eastern region not too long ago on a wide range of issues, he doubts the secret tape circulating is genuine.
But the Insight newspaper Editor averred that, that cannot be true because, "the voice is exactly that of the former Finance Minister".
"It is not enough for him to say that it has been edited...nothing on this tape has been edited," he said.