You’ve energy to slap me but not enough to fix Ghana – Ernesto Yeboah to Adei

The leader of the Economic Fighters League (Fighters), Mr Ernesto Yeboah, has questioned the priorities of the Chairman of the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC), Prof Stephen Adei as well as the general leadership of the country and asked them to channel their energies into creating a better future for the younger generation.

“They have energy to slap the youth for standing up for their country but they have no energy to fix the economy, they have no energy to fix our country and make it a fair and just society for all of us. They have no energy to think and plan our country in such a way that our future is secured,” Mr Yeboah told Felicity Nelson on Class 91.3FM’s Straight Talk show on Thursday, 18 July 2019 when he was directly asked to respond to the former Rector of the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA) who had, a day earlier, condemned him for disrupting parliament with his #Dropthatchamber protest in connection with plans by the Parliamentary Service Board to put up a 450-seat chamber for the legislature.

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Prof Adei said he would have slapped Mr Yeboah were he his brother for shouting “Drop that chamber” from the public gallery of parliament during a session on the proposed new chamber.

Mr Yeboah and his colleague, Mr Abeiku Adams, were arrested by the Police Protection Unit of Parliament in collaboration with the Marshals Department and dragged to parliament’s district police headquarters after disrupting the business of the house earlier this month.

In an interview with Benjamin Akakpo on the Executive Breakfast Show (EBS) on Class91.3FM on Wednesday, 17 July 2019, Prof Adei described what Mr Yeboah did as “shameful and wrong”.

“I think what the young man did in parliament was shameful and wrong. I don’t think that you have to be rude and disruptive in order to make a point. Because of what I’m saying, it shouldn’t appear that I support him because if he were my brother, I would have gone there and slapped him and say that: ‘Please, mum and dad didn’t teach us to behave that way,’” Prof Adei said.

Prof Adei, however, added his voice to support the many Ghanaians, politicians and civil society organisations that kicked against the construction of the new $200-million edifice.

He said: “That put aside, I think that that cost of the building, and I’m saying as someone who has been building, it is not that expensive but it is wrong at this time in terms of national priorities and the needs of this nation. To say we’ve given you this place to meet and you’re going to spend about a quarter of a billion dollars when we cannot do roads, it shows a sense of insensitivity and I think the reaction of the media, even the rude one, is a good message to our politicians that Ghanaians will not tolerate them…” However, Mr Yeboah maintains that the likes of Professor Adei “are people who have failed us so let’s not waste our time over them”.