Minority Leader Alexander Afenyo-Markin has rejected claims that he described presidential staffer Nana Yaa Akyenpim Jantuah as a \u201cnobody\u201d during the New Patriotic Party\u2019s (NPP) presentation of its petition at the Jubilee House.<\/p>\n
Mr Afenyo-Markin said his comments were not intended to question Ms Jantuah\u2019s qualifications or personal standing but were directed at the decision to have her alone receive the NPP\u2019s petition.<\/p>\n
His response follows a public complaint by Ms Jantuah, who said she was deeply disappointed by what she considered a disrespectful remark made by the Minority Leader in the presence of the media and other political officials.<\/p>\n
Ms Jantuah, speaking on\u00a0Asempa FM\u2019s<\/strong>\u00a0Ekosiisen<\/em>\u00a0on Thursday, August 6, said she was shocked that Mr Afenyo-Markin would refer to her as a \u201cnobody\u201d during such a public event.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m so mortified that you could stand there and look in the face of a woman and tell that woman she is nobody. I just cannot comprehend what happened,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n She further argued that the comment was not only personally offensive but also undermined the office she represented at the time she was assigned to receive the NPP\u2019s petition.<\/p>\n Mr Afenyo-Markin, however, has disputed that interpretation of his remarks, insisting that he never suggested that Ms Jantuah was unqualified to receive the petition.<\/p>\n \u201cMy friends in the NDC, they can do their mischief and get people to believe in their mischief,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Speaking on Accra-based Metro TV, the Minority Leader said his objection was specifically about the decision to designate only Ms Jantuah to receive the petition.<\/p>\n \u201cI wasn\u2019t saying that she does not qualify. I said \u2018to nominate only you\u2019 and I underscored it by saying that with great deference, great respect,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n He stressed that he deliberately used respectful language during the exchange and repeated his expression of deference to Ms Jantuah.<\/p>\n According to him, his position should not be interpreted as a personal attack on the presidential staffer.<\/p>\n \u201cI am not perfect, but I am also equally aware of my environment. I don\u2019t go out to be attacking or disrespecting people,\u201d Mr Afenyo-Markin said.<\/p>\n He also declined to engage further in the dispute, suggesting that the controversy was being promoted by political actors seeking to shift attention away from the NPP\u2019s demonstration.<\/p>\n \u201cI won\u2019t respond to her,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Mr Afenyo-Markin accused elements within the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC) of using what he described as a \u201cspinning machinery\u201d to change the narrative surrounding the NPP\u2019s protest.<\/p>\n \u201cI think that they had their own spinning machinery, they wanted to spin something to take away the shine from the day,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The Minority Leader argued that the focus should instead remain on the NPP\u2019s demonstration, which he described as peaceful and well attended.<\/p>\n He said the party had presented what it considered clearly articulated concerns through the protest and the subsequent petitions, and did not want the disagreement over his exchange with Ms Jantuah to dominate public discussion.<\/p>\n \u201cThat a peaceful demonstration, issues well articulated, massive turnout\u2026\u201d he said, highlighting what he considered the key features of the event.<\/p>\n Mr Afenyo-Markin maintained that he was familiar with political tactics and would not allow the controversy to distract him from the issues the NPP had raised.<\/p>\n \u201cI am not going to respond to their agenda. I am old enough in this game, so I understand this game,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Minority Leader Alexander Afenyo-Markin has rejected claims that he described presidential staffer Nana Yaa Akyenpim Jantuah as a \u201cnobody\u201d during the New Patriotic Party\u2019s (NPP) presentation of its petition at the Jubilee House. Mr Afenyo-Markin said his comments were not intended to question Ms Jantuah\u2019s qualifications or personal standing but were directed at the decision […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":123457,"featured_media":17457,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,18],"tags":[968,5463,67,232],"class_list":["post-17456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general-news","category-politics","tag-afenyo-markin","tag-nana-yaa-jantuah","tag-ndc","tag-npp"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/123457"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17456"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17456\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17458,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17456\/revisions\/17458"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}