Asante Youth Tear Betty Apart

A youth group calling itself Asante Youth Association (AYA) descended heavily on former Minister Betty Mould-Iddrisu for allegedly claiming she felt 'pained' she was an Asante.

The former Attorney General, now a vice chairperson of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC), is reported to have lamented that the media in the Ashanti Region skewed reports detailing the achievements of the NDC government in the region and that as a result, she felt pained that she was an Asante.

'When I was appointed the Minister of Education, there were 525 Senior High Schools and one man has added almost half of that number within this short space of time…; it is almost revolutionary, unprecedented,' she was quoted to have said.

'Sometimes when I listen to the radio and I hear the things that are said on the radio, I feel pained; I feel pained that I am an Ashanti. I wonder why we can't value what we have. I wonder why we can't acknowledge that in Africa Ghana is number one and among the top five countries,' she said.

Her comments have incensed members of AYA, who also replied in equal measure, saying: 'We are also ashamed you call yourself an Asante.'

A news release issued in Accra and jointly signed by Barima Tweneboa Kodua, Secretary; Kwame Opoku Gyamfi, PRO and Nana Oppong, Operations Director, said 'we the members of the association find it quite nonsensical for a woman who claims to be of substance and virtue to voice such unspeakable, uncultured, uncouth and disgusting words like these.'

They asked Mrs Mould-Iddrisu, under whose watch as AG the NDC's self-acclaimed financier Alfred Agbesi Woyome was paid a whopping GH¢51.2 million as judgement debt, 'How can a former minister of state act in such an uncultured manner by calling the bluff of Asantes?'

'We the youth of Asante over the years have supported any son or daughter of the Asante land regardless of his/her political affiliation; we have always put Asante first. We want to make it clear to Obaapanyin Betty Mould-Iddrisu that we are equally ashamed to even classify her as one of us,' they fired back.

The group noted that her abysmal 'performance in the Mills administration kept some of us wondering whether she was indeed one of our own.'

They claimed there are 'numerous virtuous women' from the region who have served the nation with distinction, adding, 'strangely enough the only woman who claims to be an Asante, who has brought shame to the great kingdom during her tenure in a public office as Attorney General, is Obaapanyin Betty Mould.'

'How can a person who cannot speak the most popular local dialect (Twi) in the country classify herself as one of us?' they quizzed, adding, 'she has always branded herself as a non-Asante and so we are not surprised one bit by her words, only that we see her as uncouth.'

The group said the Asante kingdom 'is greater and bigger than her and her political party and so if she is in, it doesn’t make it full and if she is out, it doesn’t make it half empty.'