FM-station in trouble over April Fool's joke

An expensive April Fool’s Day joke is likely to land a Kumasi FM radio station and one of its presenters in trouble. Mobitel Ghana Limited, Ghana’s premier cellular phone network operators, is planning to lodge a formal complaint with the National Media Commission against Fox FM and Mr Kwame Adinkra, the station’s morning show host, for bringing the operations of the company into disrepute.

Mobitel is also contemplating instituting legal action at the courts against, the radio station and Mr Adinkra, to seek a number of reliefs including punitive and monetary compensations for damages caused to its corporate image. The Northern Sector Manager of Mobitel Ghana Limited, Mr John Afriyie, disclosed this to The Mirror in an interview.

He said on the morning of 1 April 2002 Mr Kwame Adinkrah did announce on his programme, The Morning Show, that Mobitel was switching its network from the analogue system it currently operates to the GSM. Mr Adinkrah allegedly repeatedly announced that customers of Mobitel should submit their analogue handsets with an amount of ?200,000 to workers of the company at its premises at Nhyiaeso, for new GSM phones already connected to the network.

The announcement allegedly directed that the offer was opened to only customers who could arrive with their analogue handsets before 12.00 noon that day. He said a female interviewee did confirm in an interview on the same station that she had already been to Mobitel offices and taken delivery of her new, fully-connected GSM handset.

However, the announcement turned out to be an April Fool’s day hoax, much to the disappointment of the numerous customers of Mobitel. According to Mr Afriyie, they were extremely surprised and amused to see a large number of Mobitel customers trooping to the offices of the company, some on foot and others in charted taxis and all types of vehicles. He said, “they came from as far as Mpraeso, Obuasi, Kumasi and other towns that enjoy Mobitel as well as Fox FM network coverage.”

According to Mr Afriyie, Mobitel found it very difficult and painful explaining to the angry customers consisting of dignified personalities, traditional rulers, doctors, lawyers etc., that the announcement was an April Fool’s joke. He expressed regret that Fox FM did not even come out after 12.00 noon to retract the joke and described their behaviour as “preposterous, reprehensible and malicious, calculated to tarnish the image of Mobitel.”