Blakk Rasta apologises to parliament for “MPs smoke wee” comment
Popular reggae musician and radio show host Abubakar Ahmed, aka Blakk Rasta has apologized unreservedly to Ghana’s parliament for shooting his mouth way off parliamentary limits.
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In a contempt of parliament proceedings encounter with the house’s Privilege’s Committee on Thursday, Blakk Rasta said his comments to the effect that some 80 percent of parliamentarians use marijuana was one of those issues one says while on heat.
His rib-cracking apology sent members of the house into laughter, but he was unequivocal about his regret for denigrating the house, describing his comments as “very unfortunate remarks” for which he has seized many opportunities to speak on radio to recant them.
It is the same remorseful urge that saw him ask his editors at Adomfmonline, a member of the Multimedia Group that first published the comment, to take down the publication he had made in an interview he granted the company on his advocacy for the legalization of marijuana in Ghana.
Led by his counsel, Thaddeus Sory, Blakk Rasta said he never intended to look down on parliament or anybody when he talked about how much economic and pharmacological benefits Ghana stood to gain with the legalization of the banned drug, especially so when other nations Ghana seeks financial aid from have taken the lead to legalise it.
“We came to apologise unreservedly,” chipped in his counsel, who also maintained the interview was not about parliament.
“It is contemptuous and we apologise,” he said in his client’s defence, explaining that parliament serves all of us and even if one had the power to bring it down, it would serve no good to do so.
He said if his client had been given the chance to speak from the onset of the proceedings, the matter which called in no less than four witnesses ahead of Blakk Rasta, would not have travelled the time it did, praying “We have all become wiser after the facts.”
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The proceedings were presided over by First Deputy Speaker of Parliament and MP for Cape Coast North, Hon. Barton Oduro, who said the committee would report to the full house for a decision and then discharged Blakk Rasta.
- Other witnesses who testified in the case were :
Henry David Yeboah, MP for Afigya Sekyere East who initially drew parliament’s attention to the comments;
Kenneth Agyei Kuranchie, Journalist and Editor-in-Chief of the Daily Searchlight newspaper which culled the article in its 17th June issue;
George Mbeah, Corporate Human Resource Manager at Multimedia who represented the CEO, Kwasi Twum; and
Mark Okraku-Mantey, Programmes Coordinator at Adom FM.