Just as I stated in my article yesterday, the political lines do not disappear in Ghana even when there is a national crisis which ought to be dealt with as a national issue.
Following the attacks and counter attacks that the Yvonne Nelson-led #DumsorMustStop campaign has received, with President Mahama even tweeting in relation to the campaign being championed by folks from the Creative Arts Industry, a group calling itself Creative Arts for Change with film-maker-Socrate Sarfo and others being in charge have issued a statement.
It’s pretty a long one but interesting, so read the statement below…
We of CREATIVE ARTS FOR CHANGE wish, as an organization brought together by our trade and industry – the creative arts industry – to add our voice to those of the millions of Ghanaian businesses, entrepreneurs, students, teachers, doctors, nurses, patients, parents, media houses and the general citizenry about this near devastating energy situation – “dumsor”.
We want to publicly notice and endorse the effort of our colleagues who recently have been outspoken about this situation. We refer specifically to Yvonne Nelson, Lydia Forson, Sarkodie, D.K.B. and the many others who have joined in this battle. Congratulations to all of you for fighting for us all in the industry and for Ghanaians. We doff our hats to you.
We also take note of the attacks our colleagues have had to face from some political quarters, particularly government circles. We are very disappointed that those politicians have taken this route of our politics to personalize and partisanize the situation.
Particularly, we also take note that the President has taken a position that the actions of our colleagues – and by extension, of ours by our previous actions and as we issue this statement – are politicized; something he believes we should not be a part of because of our industry. While we do not begrudge him his position on the matter, we humbly remind him that it is our right to determine our future, which is a political decision.