Who is Abraham Attah that no one can tease?

• Posted on March 2, 2016
• by Nana Kwesi Coomson
• Comment

I have read with shock but little surprise how three radio personalities were taken to the cleaners yesterday. What was their crime? (Granted) they teased a young man who has achieved what many in his field may never achieve in their lifetime. Abraham Attah has won and presented Awards on stages that many can only dream of and he is still only 14yrs Old. Yes, he is a HERO, and done so well.

But does that mean no one can tease him? If he makes a mistake, No one can talk about it? Have you not seen many videos of younger kids reciting/singing the National pledge/anthem wrongly on social media and we all laughed? And oh, have we forgotten quickly about the songs and jokes after President Mills made the famous ‘ecomini’ slips?  What makes Abraham Attah any different? Because he has achieved so much in such short time or because he is a young innocent boy, no one dares tease him? I just don’t get the logic.

If any young man said ‘Tsenk you, Tsenk you’ on any other day, are we saying with all sincerity that we will see nothing wrong with it? And who among us did not laugh out loud, or at least giggle small when we saw clips of AB’s speech/mistake at the Awards ceremony?

We need to grow more tolerant and have enough space to accommodate each other’s opinion, and stop this unnecessary hypocritical attempt at Nationalism. How does a Presenter, merely repeating someone’s mistakes in jest (regardless of the person’s age and achievements), mean they are ‘hating’ and seek to bring them down.

Many of us who chastised the presenters have no clue what they actually said and yet, we are the loudest and have used the most expletives on them.

Abraham Attah needs to be praised and guided to even achieve higher heights. Let’s not be sycophantic and lead this talented young man into an abyss of over-confidence. By all means let us applaud and encourage him, but don’t let us try to make him too comfortable to repeat some mistakes which we all admit are basic.

Mind you, no one complained about his accent. Saying ‘Tsenk you’ is not about your accent, it’s about phonetics and we all learn each passing day. Let us cut the presenters some slack, because many, if not all of us would have done same if we were in their shoes.

Now that they have apologized, can we turn our attention to the (True) State of the Nation now?

Kudos Abraham!!!

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