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Opinions of Wednesday, 8 November 2017

Columnist: Dr. Kingsley Nyarko

REJOINDER: GhanaPost Saga: Bawumia's 'ballistic' reply needless

Dr Mahamudu Bawumia,Vice-President of Ghana Dr Mahamudu Bawumia,Vice-President of Ghana

I was shocked when I read the above story on one of the news portals yesterday. I must say that Prof. Gyampoh was dead wrong on this, and his criticism of Dr. Bawumia's response to the misguided comments by President Mahama was completely out of order. The response by the Vice-president was spot on and achieved at least two important objectives.

First, it exposed former President Mahama's complete lack of understanding of the Ghana National Digital Property Addressing System, and secondly, and more importantly, it made others who didn't understand it to get a better and clearer understanding. To these ends, his response was timely and needful.

According to Prof. Gyampoh, "Generally, I am in pain and that the Vice president should go to his posturing as a father of the nation and also take note of the fact that his office is just a heartbeat away from the president. And so some of these things he can leave it to other offices to handle and focus on helping the president to deliver on his promises." My question to Ransford is simple, which political science theory says that Presidents or Vice-presidents cannot respond to their critics? Several leaders across the globe have at a point in time saw the need to correct misrepresentations, distortions and propaganda about their administrations. Barrack Obama did that, Donald Trump is doing that; in fact, when intelligent leaders speak, they bring clarity to matters raised within the media space, and Dr. Bawumia accomplished that.

Again, for Prof. Gyampoh to state that, it was "completely out of place for the Vice-president, Dr. Bawumia to respond the way he did" was unfortunate and unfair. He did nothing wrong, rather he brought clarity about the intervention on the minds of many. Instead of bringing President Mahama in line, he made Dr. Bawumia the fall guy.

I would wish that, Ransford should be bold and chastise the former president for his needless and insulting comments about this notable intervention that is supposed to change our way of life.

God bless Ghana!