Pius Enam Hadzide is the Biggest Joke of a Deputy Minister of Information

How on earth could PIUS ENAM HADZIDE, the Deputy Minister of Information, further reduce his image, after his dreadful drubbing by Felix Ofosu Kwakye, last Saturday on Newsfile by blaming his abysmal performance on somebody not letting him know about the subject matter prior to him appearing on the show? “If I had known we were going to discuss ……. I’d have…” Jesus Christ!!!

Granted he didn’t see the ubiquitous #JOYNEWS banner on social media or received any synopsis, what subject matter did he prepare for, before accepting the invitation as a Deputy Minister of Information, to appear on the ALMIGHTY #NEWSFILE? Did he think he was being invited to a kenkey party? Lame excuses as this could only do for the diehard NPP foot soldier and pseudo-media influencers. He could only tell this to the marines.

Which Deputy Minister of Information in his right senses would appear on Newsfile- a 3-hour programme, the most popular in Ghana, without an inkling of what was going to be discussed or debated? Only Pius Enam Hadzide will ever do that. One would have expected a Deputy Minister of Information to have been on top of every major subject, especially occasioned by a statement of his own appointor, the President of the Republic of Ghana. The president, within the week, had made a very scathing comment about the records of the previous administration, saying that the said unmatched infrastructures his main opponent built, were phantom projects that existed only in the NDC’s Green Book. The President’s comments had long attracted responses from across the pond, in a multitudes of voices and perspectives. The Deputy Minister of Information needs no prompting to have his notes at his fingertips.

If you can’t carry the load, don’t blame it on the innocent cotton rag pad on your head. Let’s credit the Ghanaian with a little bit of intellect to decipher and analyse our actions, beyond what we profess to be or who we are. Even a toddler, watching Newsfile for the second time in her life, could tell that Hadzide was very mediocre on the show. And to have Paul Adom Otchere of Good Evening Ghana (#GEG), Metro TV, attempt the veiled image redemption PR stunt for him, should tell the Ghanaian where some of our supposed journalists’ interests lay.

The media cannot be reduced to being the PR machine and a mouthpiece for the ruling class. In a democracy, that many of our media houses and practitioners have become the voice of the ruling class, instead of the masses, what is the use of all the effort which went into the passage of the RTI, the repeal of the criminal libel law etc? In a democracy, where journalists are more critical of the opposition, creating the fertile ground for the regime to regularise criminality and mediocrity, are we all but but doomed as a people? The media is supposed to among other things, expose shoddiness in the output of appointees, who are paid with our taxes, and not to help paper them. The media is supposed to be pushing the political class, especially the ruling government, to perform with the highest level of efficiency. Becoming a PR machine for the regime, defeats the very rationale of the media being the fourth arm of the estate as well being the watchdog for the masses.

How Paul Adom Otchere, the host of a current affairs programme on a rival television channel (Metro TV), could ever imagine asking Pius Hadzide about what happened on Newsfile (JoyNews), should attract the uttermost scorn of every Ghanaian. A true review of the JoyNews programme, should have had an input of a sort from the Newsfile production team. The PR stunt on Good Evening Ghana was equally shambolic as the Deputy Minister’s mediocre showing on Newsfile. Let’s call a spade a spade, and a duck a duck.

By George Kwaku Yeboah || Contributor