Has Sekondi-Takoradi media betrayed C.K. Mann?

• Posted on April 3, 2018April 3, 2018
• by Nana Kwesi Coomson
• Comment

The airwaves cannot be inundated with per minute mention of Charles Kofi Amankwaa Mann popularly known as C.K Mann, agreed, but at least an appreciable number of mentions and programmes carefully crafted to his memory would have sent a signal to anyone who tunes in to the over 25 radio stations in the Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolis that a colossus has fallen.

Since 20^th March, 2018 when C.K. Mann passed on, the dedication of airtime to his memory is like spitting in the sea. Let’s do this, tune in to any radio station (the most active medium in the Metropolis) from morning to evening, say from 7am to 7pm and update your social media on the number of times you hear anything about C.K. Mann. You’ll be disappointed!

I would not dare compare the publicity the Accra media gave the death of Ebony to the dedication of airtime the Sekondi-Takoradi media is giving to C.K. Mann because that would be embarrassing.

For the first time my prediction of how the media would go about the demise of a giant like C.K. Mann was wrong. Telling an Artiste that I wonder if any news would fly in the Metropolis because every medium would craft a special programme to celebrate the King of ‘Osode Highlife’ so he should defer his promotion to a latter date has been betrayed.

“C.K. Mann die, when?” (Is C.K. Mann dead, when?) a 28 year old man asked Ampaabeng, the CEO of  Westline Entertainment, organizers of Western Music Awards last week Friday (30^th March, 2018) when the topic of a spacious place to organize the funeral for the legend came up. As shocked as we were, his next question “So then talk am on radio, wey I no hear?” (So has it been said on radio and I didn’t hear it?) made us aware that he was right after all because it is hardly discussed on radio.

For a regional capital that brags about where the best comes from, this is the least it could do for someone whose name was synonymous with Sekondi-Takoradi. For a man whose works is the measure gauge for the younger generation of Musicians and for someone whose compositions are always used as the quintessential almost all the time, it is disappointing to rarely hear about anything concerning him in the media.

Even though some of us were worried about the Auntie of Ebony who became unpopular following the death of the 21-year-old Artiste, from the media angle, it was a deliberate and carefully structured approach to give the pre, peri and post Ebony funeral that publicity, to the extent that even the colour of a coffin became a national discussion.

In this age where most people’s perceptions are shaped by what they hear in the media, to dimly shine a candle light on a person whose funeral undeniably should be funded by the state is very disappointing.

I wouldn’t attribute it to lack of creativity on the part of the media on how to project the C.K. Mann figure in this time. I know how creative most of the Programmes Manager are so I wonder what exactly would be the cause of such whispering publicity on him.

It was heart-breaking to hear on Citi FM yesterday (2^nd April, 2018) when the host of the morning show Bernard Avle said that they will play a documentary on C.K. Mann. Such embarrassment to the media in the Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolis.

Of course C.K. Mann was more of a continental brand than a Metropolitan one so it would be argued that it wouldn’t be embarrassing if Citi FM takes it up but hardly would any biography or citation about him end without a mention of Takoradi in it so for Takoradi, it should have been a Metropolitan mourning especially as he lived almost all his life in the city. When Fela Kuti died in Lagos in 2nd August 1997, Lagos took the funeral from the federal government and organized and buried Fela, their darling boy just as their custom is, simply put, it was a Lagos funeral and not even a Nigerian funeral. 

The least said about the 49-year-old Minister of Tourism, Arts and Culture, Catherine Afeku who hails from the region, the better. For someone who has mammoth influence in the industry to champion a cause to make C.K. Mann widely celebrated not even in the Metropolis alone but Ghana and she is hardly part of anything in the Western Region, the least said about her, the better.

Is this how our heroes are celebrated, will the media in the Sekondi-Takoradi always dwell on what Accra stations pipe to the Metropolis, what is the Sekondi-Takoradi agenda? These questions run through my mind in this time.

Author: Nana Kwesi Coomson (www.233times.net) @nkcoomson on Twitter