"We’re servicing you to be comfortable. We use our taxes to make you the happiest man in this country. Everywhere you want to go and sleep, we pay for you. Whatever you want to do, we do for you. So, if we use our taxes to pay you to ensure that you feel comfortable, the least we expect is that you will accord Ghanaians some respect," Atik Mohammed cautioned Youth and Sports Minister Mahama Ayariga over some comments he made on Peace FM's Kokrokoo on Tuesday, February 11, 2015.
Atik Mohammed, Policy Analyst of the People's National Convention (PNC), registered his displeasure with the Minister's demeanor towards the media, stressing that he should learn from his predecessors.
Making his submissions on Peace FM's "Kokrokoo", Atik Mohammed advised Mahama Ayariga to be wary of the words he utters to Ghanaians because he lives on the taxpayers' money.
According to him, he is accountable to the Ghanaian citizenry and for that matter should show "respect" to media practitioners in the country because they represent the entire citizenry.
He explained that, to Ghanaians, the media being it radio, print or television is their "Parliament" because it serves as a channel through which relevant information is disseminated to Ghanaians.
Upon the return of the Black Stars and Mahama Ayariga who had been with the team in Equatorial Guinea during the African Nations Cup (AFCON), Mahama Ayariga has been ranting about Ghana's media asking what he calls "useless" questions and apparently wasting airtime on fruitless ventures.
Mahama Ayariga was quizzed about certain issues that the media and majority of Ghanaian soccer fans found relevant to demand some answers from the Sports Ministry.
The questions mainly bordered on lines of the budget which was not released until after the AFCON and the Minister's frequent trips to the Black Stars camp during the tournament among others.
But to Hon. Ayariga, journalists in the country talk “rubbish".
In a quick riposte to the Minister, the PNC Policy Analyst stated on "Kokrokoo" that "the journalist asking is not asking in his interest. He wouldn’t have cared if it was for his own benefit but he’s working for the millions of us that are not on the platform…"
"Sometimes, it is individuals such as Ayariga that set the politicians against the public because not everybody is like this. But due to the little power in hands, he has the effrontery” to downgrade Ghanaians, he further said.
“If we had no faith in them, we wouldn’t have given them such money…I don’t know a country that supports its team in the hope that they would become second or third and come back home because if that’s how it is, nobody would invest in the national team. So, as we move forward, nobody should tell me that we didn’t have hope that they would even qualify. That is a non-starter. It is a non-issue.
“Because the mere fact that we accepted that we should sponsor them, it’s an indication that we were sure that they would win the trophy. But if they couldn’t win the trophy, we should not be praising ourselves...” he added.
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