My upbringing allows me to use certain language – Lydia Forson

And while she has explained the circumstances and her motivation for writing that piece in which she shares her frustrations over the management of the energy crisis facing the country, she believes there is pretty very little she can do to get people to understand her.

Lydia Forson on Monday told Radio Gold that her orientation and upbringing may afford her the use of certain language (including telling her dad ‘don’t be silly’ with no insult meant) but which measured against the upbringing of her critics, they might find it offensive and insulting. People are free therefore to make sense of what she says, but she stands by her article, she told show host Alhassan Suhuyini.

In a May Day open letter, the actress demanded an end to the power crisis, otherwise called “dumsor”, saying : “Our president is like that kid in school who is always last, always gives the wrong answers and never seems to grasp what is being taught.

“But for some reason you keep rooting for him, you keep hoping he will come out and shock everyone, come out and put people to shame, come out and make people take back every little mean thing they said about him.

“You keep waiting and waiting until you all graduate and he’s still stuck in the same class because he didn’t pass…”

The comments drew the ire of some government sympathisers, including a former presidential staffer, Alhaji Halidu, who particularly found the comment so distasteful he retorted in language he now finds unpalatable and has since apologized for its use.

“…So I’m not here to give people like an English education and not to say that people can’t speak or understand English, just that we all have our own…, I can’t measure people by my own standards, those who understand will understand and those who don’t, won’t. But I emphatically stress that I did not insult the president or intend to insult the president…” Lydia Forson told Radio Gold.