The deputy Minister of Tourism, Arts, and Culture, Mark Okraku-Mantey has stated that although he was present at the Global Citizen Festival, he never witnessed the ‘so-called’ booing of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.
Mr. Okraku-Mantey said until the next day when videos of the said incident were forwarded to him, he never heard anything of that sort while seated at the venue.
“I was there. Until I left there and came home the following day, I didn’t know he was booed. I didn’t hear the chants, the shouts. I didn’t hear all that. I was with the president, his family, the Accra Mayor and the security team throughout the event. The crowd was too huge that it could have happened on just one side,” he stated during an interview with Hitz FM.
Touching on his thoughts about the video, particularly, his first reaction, the government appointee said he believes that it is a well-orchestrated agenda.
“My first reaction was that, 'could it be that it happened and I didn’t know, how come nobody tweeted about it that night?' Why did they have to wait till after five or six hours? When the booing happened, for the first time, social media has become dormant until morning. It gives me the clue that it is a well-orchestrated agenda. You could tell that the person who took the video was even far from the stage," he said.
Mr. Okraku-Mantey insisted that from where he sat, all he heard when the president stood up to deliver his speech were cheers and screams of his numerous nicknames and not hoots.
“The president was rather being cheered for about a minute. When he stood up to deliver his speech, there were loud cheers with all the numerous nicknames, Addo-D, and the others,” he said.
He however believes that hooting at the president and projecting such stories will only place a dent in the country’s image globally.
To him, such recalcitrant acts will not benefit the tourism sector which is aiming to be a number one contributor to the country’s GDP.
“I have not seen any event of this gravity. Even the set-up, the size of the stage and the mammoth nature. We’ve never seen some in this country before. For a country that wants to be a number one contributor to GDP with tourism, I do not think that things like this will give us more mileage. We should turn it upside down and act like both happened there.”
EB/BB
Mark Okraku Mantey, deputy minister of Tourism, Culture and Creative Arts