Complete Aflao E-block if you’re giving ultimatum to my minister – Akufo-Addo to Togbui Fiti
Paramount chief of the Aflao traditional area, Torgbui Adzonugaga Amenya Fiti (L) and President Nana Akufo-Addo (R) cutting a ribbon
President Nana Akufo-Addo has said the paramount chief of the Aflao traditional area, Torgbui Adzonugaga Amenya Fiti, might as well go ahead and complete the Afloa E-block he recently fumed about if the traditional leader is the one now dishing out an ultimatum to the Minister of Education, Dr Yaw Adutwum, to complete the project in four months.
The GHS¢9-million project, which was one of many started by the Mahama administration, was expected to serve the residents of Aflao and its environs but was abandoned after Mr Mahama left office in 2017.
Speaking during a courtesy call on him by Minority MPs on the Education Committee of Parliament on Wednesday, 20 October 2021, after the opposition lawmakers’ nationwide tour of some of the abandoned projects, Togbui Fiti said: “Aflao is the only urban community in Ghana without a senior high school but day-in-day-out, my friends in the media only carry bad stories about Aflao”.
“They’ll not come and comb the area and see why these people are always thieves, smugglers and why we are always going to Togo. These are researches the media and government have to do.”
“After the BECE, our children now begin to struggle for space in schools elsewhere and, so, this thick population, in most cases, has no place to go”, he bemoaned.
He added: “I had to push former President Mahama to bring that project [E-block] here. I had to be running from here to Accra, begging; should we beg for education? If we have to beg for education before our people have to go to school, then I don’t know what democracy means but now, look at the structure standing over there, 90% complete. Now in the era of the NPP, we have the Free SHS but my people are not benefiting because the school is not here”, he noted.
“Your [lawmakers] coming here is redemption to the suffering people of Aflao. Carry this message to the Minister of Education that come February, I want this school to be opened.”
Responding to the chief during an interview on Accra-based Peace FM on Thursday, 21 October 2021, however, President Nana Akufo-Addo wondered if it was in the place of the chief to issue such an ultimatum and then suggested that he complete the project himself.
Mr Akufo-Addo also told Kokrokoo host Kwame Sefa Kayi that: “One of the things, I suspect, is a deficit on our part is our ability to counter propaganda. The propaganda takes over the reality of so many aspects of our national life. It’s a pity but we’ll continue”.
