Angry Ken Agyapong Storms Out Of e-TV Studios…Over JJ

NPP firebrand and Member of Parliament for Assin North, Hon. Kennedy Ohene Agyapong, shocked viewers of e-TV Ghana, a free-to-air commercial television channel when he unceremoniously stormed out of the station’s studios during its ‘Newspaper Review’ show dubbed Breakfast TV on Wednesday, November 17th. What started as the usual discussion and analysis of newspaper stories turned highly confrontational when Ken Agyapong got infuriated with his co-panelist, the MP for Ashaiman, Hon Alfred Agbesi and the host of the program, Bismark Brown for what he (Mr. Agyapong) regarded as unnecessary intrusion and “suppression of his views”. He was commenting on the statement made by Dr. Arthur Kobina Kennedy, the former Communications Director for Nana Akufo-Addo in the 2008 General Elections. A couple of weeks ago, President Mills in his address at a durbar at Bolgatanga, blamed the Kufuor led NPP administration for failing to solve Ghana’s problems in their eight years of governance, adding that they (NDC) inherited an almost collapsed economy from the NPP government. “We came to meet an economy that was not strong and had difficulties. And a lot of people have complained over the past two years, we did not see anything. I ask them, did they see anything in the previous eight years? We’re determined you should see something but we would have to remove all the bottlenecks and the burden that we inherited,” President Mills reportedly said. But Dr. Arthur Kennedy, in a sharp retort said “President Mills’ tirade was unfortunate on many accounts.” He opined that “if President Mills cannot concede that there were achievements under the eight-year rule of Kufuor’s administration”, and persistently claims that nothing was seen during his predecessor’s era, then he can be rightly accused of ‘political blindness’. The spat then began when Hon. Ken Agyapong, who described Mr. Rawlings, leader of the first NDC regime as ‘Jesus Christ and his disciples’, was stopped in mid-sentence by a clearly infuriated Hon. Agbesi. The host, Bismark Brown appealed to the Assin North MP to mention Mr. Rawlings by name, a request he reluctantly acceded to but explained that it was a description the former President conferred on himself during his tenure as president of the country. “I am making my analysis and I am building a point, Rawlings when he came to Ghana was portraying himself as Jesus Christ so why are you interrupting my comment. You are questioning my integrity and suppressing my views...Next time I'm not coming to your show...for me to drive all the way here from Burma Camp for you to just suppress my facts... I have not insulted anybody here," he argued.