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Marking Afenyo-Markin's Major in the Minors

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Alexander Afenyo-Markin Kofi Yeboah Writes, Alexander Afenyo-Markin, the Leader of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Caucus in Parliament, is a desperate man seeking to undress the media for not helping him to wear his title. He openly confronts some journalists and media houses recently, almost swallowing them for not hallowing him as the ‘Majority Leader’ in Parliament. But on this motion, the Effutu Member of Parliament (MP) is absolutely out of order, and, happily, his targets of attack have been resolute and unruffled. If Afenyo-Markin, a lawyer and lawmaker, finds it vexatious or grievous that journalists or media houses are denigrating his status by not addressing him as ‘Majority Leader’, he may rush to court and speedily secure an injunction against the unrepentant lot, or hurl them to the Privileges Committee of Parliament, or file a complaint against them at the National Media Commission (NMC), or exercise his constitutional right to rejoinder, or sue them for defamation. Instea
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Curbing impunity against journalists: Global media actors demand more from Judiciary

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A staggering 1653 journalists were killed across the world between 1993 and 2023   Kofi Yeboah Writes From Addis Ababa, GLOBAL media actors have urged the Judiciary to deal swiftly and decisively with perpetrators of crimes against journalists in order to curb such impunity. Speakers at a two-day meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to commemorate this year’s International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists, were unanimous that prosecution and conviction of persons involved in crimes against journalists would ensure deterrence and curb the impunity. The Editor and Publisher of The Daily Star in Bangladesh, Mahfuz Anam, said the Judiciary was not doing enough to support the cause of ending impunity for crimes against journalists. According to him, when journalists are killed and attacked but no convictions are made, the perpetrators are emboldened to continue the impunity. Mr Anam said in a world where democracy was failing to yield its dividends, journalism pr
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A grand funeral for ‘The Grandmaster’

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                                                     Godwin Avenorgbo, The Grandmaster Kofi Yeboah Writes, AT the funeral of ‘The Grandmaster’, there were no food or ‘takeaways’ served but that did not leave mourners hungry and angry because there were plenty takeaways and food for thought that left them really satisfied. The funeral was very simple – no elaborations; no tributes, and nothing grandeur, all in keeping to the wishes of The Grandmaster, Godwin Rosevelt Avenorgbo. The renowned broadcaster believed in simplicity – of life and events – so his family kept the funeral as such. He was time conscious and punctual (I bear testimony of this attribute having worked closely with him) and his funeral started and ended within schedule as indicated in the funeral programme. There was no ‘funeral cloth’ because in his lifetime, he detested that practice, calling it waste of money for the dead when the living need such resources for survival. There were no tributes because he
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Exit ‘The Grandmaster’: Game over!

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Godwin Avenorgbo (The Grandmaster) Kofi Yeboah Writes, I don’t know how he got the accolade ‘The Grandmaster’ but having studied him closely as my boss and senior colleague, I don’t need a soundbite of that story because Godwin Avenorgbo was professional to a fault. Speaking fine English and pouncing on the least opportunity to tell his audience he learned to speak good English in lower primary, were not more boastful of a trait than his exhibition of professionalism and demand for same. Before and during my journalism training at the Ghana Institute of Journalism (GIJ) (1994 – 1996), Godwin Avenorgbo was very grand in broadcasting and I got hooked to his professional brand. On stage, whether as programme host on radio or Master of Ceremony at state and public functions, his eloquence, delivery skills and powerful voice engaged his audience, as he drove them to celestial realms. Indeed, he emceed many high-profile state, public and traditional events, and he became a nation
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Friends from Cairo: Who do I say you are?

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  Kofi Yeboah Writes, In Matthew 16:15-16, Jesus Christ asked his disciples: “Who do you say I am?” and Peter answered correctly by declaring the divine identity of Jesus. In Cairo, Egypt, after meeting the participants of the ‘58 th Training Course for Young African Journalists’ for one week, I hereby play the character of Jesus but, unlike him, I turn the question in the opposite direction: “Who do I say you are?” I elect myself, as Peter did, to answer the question, thus, becoming both the examiner and the examined, but leaving the real assessment to whomsoever is marking the script. Although the participants who attended the training course were from different countries and cultures, it was obvious that three weeks of intellectual discourse and lively intercourse succeeded in dismantling whatever barriers that previously blocked their connection. The francophone participants Chadians are normally calm, polite and reserved, and in Nathan, those character traits are glar
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Egyptian civilisation is paragon of tourism

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Kofi Yeboah Writes From Cairo, Egypt is one of the foremost countries in which civilisation first began centuries ago, and on May 6, 2024, when I visited the National Museum of Egyptian Civilisation, in Cairo, I could not agree more with that assertion. The National Geographic Society, based in Washington DC, affirms that “Civilisations first appeared in Mesopotamia (what is now Iraq) and later in Egypt”. The National Museum of a Egyptian Civilisation is a bridge that connects medieval and modern Egypt, with artifacts that are ancient in age but arrayed in a beautiful edifice that in itself is a tourism attraction. The inward and outward appeal of the museum, sitting on a 490,000 sq metre-land, is ample testimony of the deliberate plot driving tourism as the third largest revenue inflow in Egypt. The tourism sector in Egypt raked in $13 billion in the 2022-2023 fiscal year, the third largest revenue collection industry in the country. That makes a lot of sense, given the la
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Curiosity: The driver to Egypt

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Kofi Yeboah Writes From Cairo, In the heart of Accra, at the Kwame Nkrumah Mausoleum, the mortal remains of two distinguished persons are cleaved decades after their marriage celebrated both on earth and in heaven. The marriage between Ghana’s first president Kwame Nkrumah and Egyptian beauty, Fathia, caught the fancy of the nation, and even after ‘death did them part’ more than five decades ago, their mortal remains cleaved in the belly of the earth at the tourism enclave in Accra, still attract a large number of eyeballs. Nkrumah was a champion of African unity but for him to live that charge beyond imagination, by tying the nuptial knot with Fathia, is a masterstroke of the African unity agenda he enjoyed or enjoys huge applause for on earth and in the heavens. In Ghana, especially among rural folks, whenever a star appeared close to the moon, they were deemed to be the symbolic marriage between Nkrumah and Fathia, as people rushed outside to fix a gaze in the sky and exclai
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