Frimpong Boateng turns up for cancelled GJA lecture

A renowned heart surgeon, Professor Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng,  was left in a state of shock and disappointment in Kumasi last Friday, February 7, 2014,  when he realised that a scheduled memorial lecture for which he had been invited as the main speaker had been cancelled days back without his notice.

He had driven from Accra to Kumasi to deliver the first annual Samuel Enin Memorial Lectures organised by the Ashanti Regional Chapter of the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) only to be told by the receptionist at the Golden Tulip Kumasi City Hotel that the programme had been called off days earlier.

Regrettably, the organisers had failed to inform him that the programme had been cancelled.

Invitation

Speaking to the Daily Graphic, Prof. Frimpong-Boateng said about three weeks ago, he had an invitation from the GJA in  the Ashanti Region to deliver a lecture at the Golden Tulip Kumasi City Hotel yesterday.

He said he readily agreed because it was to honour the memory of a journalist who was brutally murdered.

According to him, although the GJA in Kumasi failed to provide him with details about the personality and professional work of their late chairman, he did some research on him up to his death.

Prof. Frimpong-Boateng said he arrived in Kumasi on Thursday, February 6, 2014  and proceeded to the hotel where the programme was scheduled to be held.

“At the hotel reception, I was told no such lecture had been booked for the day. Consequently, I called the regional chairman, Listowell Yesu Bukarson,  on phone to enquire about the situation only for him to say that the programme had been postponed,” Prof. Frimpong-Boateng said.

Explanation

He said when he sought explanation about why the GJA failed to inform him about the cancellation, the chairman said he tried calling him on phone but his (Prof.) line was down.

“I took a serious view of his explanation, especially coming from a respected association like the GJA,” the heart surgeon said.

 Samuel Enin Lecture

The Ashanti Regional Chapter of the GJA instituted the Samuel Enin Memorial Lectures in memory of the late regional chaiman of the association, who was killed by some gunmen  in February 2007.

Enin, then the News Editor of Kumasi-based Ashh FM, had closed from work and relaxing with some friends at  a drinking spot in Kumasi that night when his assailants shot him in the midsection. He was rushed to the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital but was pronounced dead on arrival.

Two suspects were arrested but the case had been pending at the Kumasi High Court for the past three years.

At the last celebration of the World Press Freedom Day in Kumasi, the regional GJA chairman, Mr Bukarson, announced the institution of the memorial lectures which he said would be an annual affair.