‘I will not flee abroad; I will stay and freely speak my mind’ – A Plus after UTV invasion by NPP thugs
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Political activist Kwame Asare Obeng, alias A Plus, has categorically stated he will not cower and run away from Ghana because of attacks aimed at him for his views and observations about government.
On Saturday, October 7, 2023, a TV programme A Plus regularly participates in as part of the punditry, United Showbiz on Accra-based UTV, was attacked by more than a dozen men.
Ghana Police Service, in a statement, has noted it has 16 men in their custody in response to the attack. This followed promptings by the management of the media house and the Information Ministry.
“These things have been going on to the extent that while a judge was actively presiding over a case, some boys attacked and overrun the court, sacking the judge,” Kwame A Plus lamented, noting this is a distasteful anomaly seeing as Ghana is “a country where the president is part of the [Ghana] Bar Association”.
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Stressing that he is no coward, he said: “I will not flee to a nation abroad like Kevin Taylor, I will stay here and freely speak my mind to you.”
A Plus also emphasised that he is able to meet thuggery boot-for-boot because “all my boys are just a phone call away” and so “24 hours I am ready”.
Repeatedly on the TV programme, the political activist and social commentator indicated that he had been informed the Deputy Director of Communications for the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP), Ernest Owusu Bempah, was behind the attack suffered by UTV, but primarily aimed at his person.
“If you attack this place again during a show with your boys, we will thoroughly beat them,” A Plus warned.
Though enraged, Kwame A Plus noted that “one has to tamper their rebukes, however, because” it would be quite unfair to “blame the entire governing New Patriotic Party” for the actions of one person. He namedropped NPP figures, some of which “are my friends,” intimating their innocence.
“We cannot attack the whole NPP because of just one idiot,” he emphasised.
“If Owusu Bempah is the one who sent those people, wherever we will also find him, we’ll send people to him,” he strongly registered.
A Plus asserted: “The crisis bedeviling the NPP party, Owusu Bempah is part of it. Very stupid guy, writing stupid letters around.”
According to reports, one of the said letters was dramatically torn on a recent edition of the United Showbiz TV programme by the social commentator, allegedly provoking the attack.
According to A Plus, “on so many occasions,” he has told Owusu Bempah “you are my brother but if you want a fight with me, you will have it”.
He pressed that the owner of the Despite Group of Companies, and the management of UTV, “on this occasion must take this seriously”.
“This is a civilised country,” he barked. “And we cannot sit here, and pretend and start going to talk about another issue.”
He alleged Owusu Bempah has placed a phone call to the media house threatening to “collapse it”.
The National Communications Director for the governing NPP, Richard Ahiagbah, appearing on the very show which was attacked also condemned the actions of the so-called NPP sympathisers.
He informed the host, Ms Gee, that one of her producers had phoned him to report the incident, “and I said I would come see for myself”.
Ahiagbah said: “Per my checks, there is no directive from the party that some people should come disrupt this show so what happened is most unfortunate and the NPP condemns it.”
He noted that, while at the police station, he witnessed the attackers’ statements being taken, and “we encouraged them to take the statements and conduct an investigation so we know the origins of this incident so the right thing will be done”.
Meanwhile, Ahiagbah’s deputy, the one accused by A Plus as the instigator of the attack, Ernest Owusu Bempah, has issued a statement demanding an unqualified apology from A Plus for what he calls “defamatory statements made without any substantiation or lawful justification,” else he will “instruct my lawyers to institute legal action for the damage and injury caused to my integrity”.
