The Minister And The Intern

Ghana is all agog with the news of Sanitation Minister Cecilia Dapaah telling off an Adom FM intern for daring to call her for an interview. She is reported to have told the GIJ student and Adom FM intern, Rahinatu Abdul Bach, "You don't respect-- please go off" before hanging up on the intern.

Let me begin with Adom FM. I don't know their policy on interns but it seems inappropriate for an intern to be asked to call a Minister without a Supervisor on the call, as a matter of professionalism and courtesy. Adom and other media houses need to do better. If the intern was out reporting and suddenly saw the Minister, it would be completely acceptable for her to ask questions in search of a possible scoop.

As far as the Minister is concerned, the only positive thing was that she picked up the call. In this era when so many officials are accused of not picking their calls, that was commendable. As for her claim that the call was disrespectful, I beg to differ.

She could have seen this as an opportunity to inspire a young journalist, a young woman or a chance to address the concerns of a citizen AND a voter. Indeed, if even Ms. Bach was not an intern and had never stepped in journalism school, she would, as a citizen be entitled to ask a Minister, any Minister a question. Conceding the Minister's point, for the sake of argument that she was not qualified to ask her questions, she missed an important teaching moment.

Here in the US, in 2017, the then-Defense Secretary, Gen. Maddox, granted an interview to two high school students working on a high school newspaper after they sent him a text! And the interview was published by many reputable newspapers. People like Matt Drudge, who are not trained journalists publish very reputable news websites. And here in Ghana, Abdul Malik Kweku Baako is highly respected as a journalist, and rightly so despite lacking formal training.

We should hope that the Minister's reaction had nothing to do with the intern's age.

Finally, these are the moments that define public figures in the mind of the public. Let us hope that the Minister, upon reflection, will realise her error and reach out to the young woman, as a parent and particularly, as a leader who recognizes her as a citizen obeying the President's exhortation to all of us to "be citizens"

May God bless Ghana.
Arthur Kobina Kennedy (23rd July 2019)