The Chairman of the National Peace Council, Most Reverend Professor Emmanuel Asante, is asking Ghanaians offended by the “unguarded” tribal comments of the deputy Agric Minister, William Quaitoo to forgive him.
Mr. Quaitoo in an interview with Starr News recently went berserk, describing farmers from the North, demanding compensation for their crops destroyed by the army worm epidemic as people who cannot be trusted.
Despite rendering an unqualified apology after he was heavily trolled by residents of the Northern region, the Minority in Parliament led by their leader Haruna Iddrisu asked for his sacking.
Describing the deputy Minister’s comments as unjustified and unacceptable, the minority said in a statement that “We find it totally unjustifiable and unacceptable that the Deputy Minister would label the entire people of the three Northern Regions who he says he has lived with for 27 years, as unreasonable people, accomplished and persistent liars, people with a high propensity for perpetrating fraud, people who all the time use these fraudulent acts to steal money from the state.
“…Should he fail to quit these office voluntarily and now, we call on the President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo, to fire him immediately as a mark of his revulsion against this unprovoked and reckless ethnocentric bigotry against the entire people of the three Northern Regions”.
In his comments on the matter Tuesday, Prof. Asante urged Ghanaians to let go.
“We should also know that when somebody says something and the person comes round to say…’on second thought I think I didn’t do the right thing…I did not exercise circumspection in what I said so I apologise profusely for whatever words that I used or the way I expressed my ideas’, I think it is important for us as human beings to forgive. After all, we are all human,” he told Starr News.
“We all wrong others. But if we hold onto it and claim that no; because this person said it, he has not been circumspective enough; he’s insulted me and I am not going to forgive that person, I am going to really give it back to that person, two wrongs don’t make one right. And I think it is important for us to also understand that the decent thing any respectable leader will do is that after the person had done something that is wrong and it is pointed out to him, he comes back to realize that I didn’t do the right. And then if the person comes to apologise for the wrong thing he did, let’s forget and move forward,” he added.
