Kwahuman seeks collaboration with GCGL over sanity of Easter

A seven-member group from the Daasebre Development Advisory Board of Kwahuman has called for collaboration with the Graphic Communications Group Limited (GCGL), for the accelerated development of the area.

The call was made when members of the board, who represented Kwahuman, called on the Director News of GCGL Mrs Mavis Kitcher, at the head office of the company in Accra yesterday.

The chairman and leader of the group, Nana Abra-Appiah, said such a proposal between the board and GCGL could further help in marketing the tourism potential of the area to Ghanaians and foreigners.

The visit was also to enable the board and GCGL to dialogue on the way forward after the chiefs and people of Kwahu had expressed some misgivings over publications by The Mirror and graphiconline.com on this year’s Kwahu Easter festivities.

According to members of the Kwahuman Board, the chiefs and people of the area were scandalised over the story that was published by The Mirror on April 27, 2019 and the graphiconline.com portal headlined “Kwahu’s street of hell,’ Methodist Church turns into nightclub.”

Referring to the content of the story, they emphasised that “the negative behaviours come from outsiders, they are visitors who come to the mountains to do those things and not the people of Kwahu; the average Kwahu will not do that.”

They, therefore, proposed that going forward, the GCGL and the board should work together to educate people against exhibiting indecent dressing and untoward behaviour before and during Easter festivities in the area.

Rejoinder

A rejoinder written by solicitors of Kwahuman, G. A. Sarpong & Co. stated in part, “The said publications paint the wrong picture about the Kwahus and Easter celebration. Indeed, they portray Kwahuman as an ungodly people with no regard for the significance of Easter but rather as a people who use same for ungodly purposes.

“These publications, based on events coming out of one of our 24 Kwahu towns, cannot, and ought not form a picture of Kwahuman as a whole.

This is rather unfortunate. The accounts are not only exaggerated but also unbalanced in as much as they only portray what you consider a negative aspect of Easter celebrations in Kwahu.

“The said publications have lowered the esteem of Kwahus in the eyes of right-thinking members of society; and have the potential of denuding the positive inroads tourism makes to the socio-economic advancement of Kwahu, as they create the impression that Kwahu Easter is unworthy of witnessing/participation,” the rejoinder said.

The rejoinder dated May 24, 2019, said, Easter was a significant event in the lives of Kwahus in several respects, adding that over the years, it had served as an occasion for the citizenry to plan, raise funds and execute development programmes.

“It is a reunion for family, friends and relations, religious conventions and the execution of development projects in health and education,” it added.

Response

Responding to the proposal, Mrs Kitcher said the Daily Graphic, for instance, always produced pull-outs on the Kwahu Easter festivities, which highlighted very interesting aspects of the celebrations as well as on Kwahu culture, which, she said, demonstrated the GCGL’s commitment and willingness to collaborate with the Kwahus for the national good.

She said the GCGL’s doors were always open for collaboration with its publics on matters that bordered on national development.

On the concerns expressed by the Kwahuman Board, Mrs Kitcher explained that as the watchdog of society, it behoved the media to report wrongdoings in society as well as capture positive happenings.

“Because we are state-owned and a newspaper organisation, if there is anything that goes wrong, we cannot close our eyes. So we cannot say that because it is not Kwahus who are doing it, we should not talk or write about it,” she stated.

For her part, the Editor of The Mirror, Ms Janet Quartey, said the paper was not out to ditch or defame anybody or group of persons.

She pointed out that all concerned parties in the said stories were spoken to extensively. Ms Quartey, however, expressed appreciation to the board for visiting the company to express its concerns.