The Deputy Minister of Tourism, Creative Arts and Culture, Mark Oktaku Mantey has revealed how President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo lobbied for the Global Citizen Festival to be organized in Accra.
He said the festival organisers initially wanted to hold it Nigeria, however, the President stepped in to lobby for it to come to Ghana.
Ghana was picked by the organizers partly because President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo had showed interest in having it take place in Ghana.
In an interview on Hitz FM which was monitored by The Chronicle, the Deputy Minister mentioned that the concert was part of efforts aimed at marketing Ghana’s tourism, “and so, President Akufo-Addo showed interest, originally Global Citizen, they wanted to go to Nigeria, for some good reasons, we were the ones who won,” he said.
The event made headlines when the President was booed by a section of the crowd as he arrived on stage to deliver his welcome address.
This has had the governing administration reacting to it. According to a statement issued by the Deputy Director of Communications, Ernest Owusu Bempah Bonsu, the NDCs perpetuated the orchestration of heckling of the president for political scores.
Mr. Owusu Bempah said it was disgraceful for the NDC to organize its supporters to go and shout down the President in the manner it happened.
“Truly, politicians don’t expect to be popular all the time. Getting on with running the country is a job where you have to take difficult decisions a lot of the time. There’s nothing wrong if President Akufo-Addo goes to an event and receives cold reception. That’s a normal occurrence.
“But then, to allow politics to take center stage at such an event and single out the President unfairly for political point scoring raises serious concerns. To put it more bluntly, it is pure evil and utter disgrace for the NDC to organize its supporters to go and shout down at the President the manner it happened,” he said.
