Totobi Hits Back At Agyenim-Boateng

Accra The Ministry of Communications today denied an allegation by Mr Joseph Agyenim-Boateng, General Secretary of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), that a parade instructor told President Jerry John Rawlings he drinks too much. A statement signed in Accra by Mr Kofi Totobi Quakyi, out-going Minister of Information, said the parade instructor rather told the President "you think too much. Stop thinking". It, therefore, called on Mr Agyenim-Boateng to answer what it described as "blatant lie and misrepresentations." The remark was said to have been made by the parade instructor at the recent keep-fit-military drill organised for ministers and other government officials at the Military Academy and Training School in Accra. "... it is very strange that it is Mr Agyenim-Boateng alone who heard the parade instructor tell the President that he 'drank too much' when the rest of the country heard something different". According to the statement, it will be interesting to investigate the state in which Mr Agyenim-Boateng himself was when he viewed the clip of the exercise on Ghana Television. The statement also said Mr Agyenim-Boateng's reference to the adoption of lower military ranks as debasing the public image of ministers is a deep insult to soldiers in those ranks. The statement said: "Mr Agyenim-Boateng possesses the exclusive rights to elitism and we have no wish to contest him on that, but to describe the adoption of lower ranks of the military as debasing the public image of Ministers is a deep insult to the lower ranks of the Military and other security services." It said Mr Agyenim-Boateng is on record as describing Muslims and ordinary people of Ayawaso as 'low grade people'. "This will therefore just appear as a continuation of his demonstration of contempt for the ordinary people of this country." The statement said the Progressive Alliance represents the ordinary people and it is within its philosophy to maintain a constant interaction with them. "Numerous images of the president working on the railroad with railway workers, desilting choked drains with ordinary people is perfectly our style which the majority of this country endorsed overwhelmingly at the last two elections."