By Margaret Jackson
May 7, 2013
Ghanaians woke up to the inferno which wiped out the Kantamanto Market in Accra on Sunday. The sad news led to victims losing millions of Cedis and creating mournful scenes at the area, with scores of Ghanaians rushing to the place to commiserate with the victims.
The Vice President, Paa Kwesi Amissah-Arthur was there with a team to console the victims and offered some hopeful thoughts. He even tasked the Ministry of Interior to immediately institute an investigation into the cause of the fire since many suspect the hand of an arsonist.
Paa Kwesi Amissah-Arthur further charged the Ministry of Finance and banks to assist the fire victims with soft loans in order for them to rescue their businesses from the inferno.
Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, the twice defeated NPP Presidential Candidate, lives less than 10 kilometres from the Kantamanto Market if you are talking about his house at Nima. If you want to give him the benefit of a doubt that Nana Akufo-Addo was at his East Legon house on Sunday when the fire broke out at the Kantamanto Market, just be lenient and add five (5) more kilometres to arrive at 15 kilometres.
Nana Akufo-Addo and his communication directorate waited until the Vice President left the scene at the Kantamanto Market. They then put in their diabolical plan to deceive the victims and Ghanaians as a whole.
Instead of Akufo-Addo going to the Kantamanto Market to console the victims as he normally would have done if it was a campaign season, he just stayed home and caused his communication directorate to issue a statement to console the victims. The NPP Communication Directorate then ensured that the hollow statement was published on all the appropriate websites and newspapers in Ghana to fool Ghanaians and the victims that he Akufo-Addo was indeed sad about their loss.
When you are in pain due to the loss of a loved one, you expect those who feel your pain to come closer and offer some words of consolation. When fire breaks up and destroys your earthly property or business, you expect those who profess to care to at least reach you at wherever you are lamenting, and offer words of hope.
If you are in pain because your business is totally wiped out, you won’t even have the mind to go on the web to read a statement from Nana Akufo-Addo consoling you. I bet your mind will be totally lost to even read a newspaper.
Akufo-Addo, whose party has a lot of goodwill at the Kantamanto area simply snubbed the victims when it counted most and just issued a statement to cuckold them. If you do not read the statement well and just go by the headline you will be fooled into believing that Akufo-Addo also rushed to the area to offer some words of encouragement to the victims.
There is the saying that it is only when you are in deep trouble that you see those who are your true friends. Going to the Kantamanto Market to spend just five minutes with the victims would not have cost Akufo-Addo anything. And don’t be fooled if someone tells you that he was preparing for the Supreme Court sitting the next day hence his inability to go to the site, because since the case began Akufo-Addo has just been a mere spectator who perhaps does not have a clue as to what is going on.
The true colours of Akufo-Addo always show at different cycles. I am amazed that Akufo-Addo will turn his back to the Kantamanto Market traders who constitute a bigger voting block for the NPP. Akufo-Addo may fool some voters sometimes, but he cannot fool them all the time. God bless and sustain the victims in their time of need.
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