The founder of UT Holdings, Prince Kofi Amoabeng, has bemoaned the politics of insult in the country ahead of the 2016 elections slated for December 7.
Some members and supporters of some political parties have in recent times been involved in hurling vitriol at both President John Dramani Mahama and the main opposition leader Nana Akufo-Addo in a bid to discredit them for political gain, a trend many political scientists have identified as worrying.
According to Mr Amoabeng, who was speaking on Entertainment Capital on Accra100.5FM on Saturday August 27, many young people now saw it as normal to hurl insults at adults in the name of politics.
“Currently, what worries me is that the values and the general character of the youth are deteriorating. I don’t want to go into politics but really when I listen to some of the media houses and I see some of these young people who have just joined these media houses, probably in their 20s and 30s, talking about say the head of state, for goodness sake, the head of state is a personification of the state and he represents the state. You cannot insult the head of state because you [would be] insulting Ghana. Or even let’s take the opposition; Akufo-Addo is 70-something years old. For goodness sake, [because of] African training, by our culture, you cannot insult somebody who is probably two times your age. So, the values of Ghanaian youth have gone to the dogs,” the businessman lamented, adding: “…I don’t understand how young people can look at people like Akufo-Addo and the rest who have served this country and in their 70s and you just come out from school and insult them.”
Mr Amoabeng advised the youth to respect the elderly as Ghanaian traditions and customs demanded.
“I think the youth of today have lost a lot of values and generally we are in a rush. We think we are there, but we are empty, and we don’t know what we are about. You have to take your time and go through the mill and respect the other people and learn from them until you get there. If you don’t know how to serve, you cannot expect that people will serve you,” he advised.
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