Vice President Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang
The Vice President Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang, oops! Acting President, received mention by some radio stations yesterday.
It was one of those rare opportunities when she attracts such mention, which is good because it shows how busy she can sometimes be.
The radio discourse was for good and bad reasons. She penned a statement on the recent Volta Lake tragedy which claimed the lives of eleven children and four adults. It was such a tragedy which unlike an earlier one near Konongo in the Ashanti Region in which over a dozen kids lost their lives, touched her heart.
The statement was an appropriate response from the mother of the nation for which she does not deserve a plaudit; after all she is expected to be caring for her children by virtue of the position she is holding as female Vice President in the country – the first from the feminine gender.
She was even said to be proceeding to the location of the tragedy somewhere in the Oti Region to physically commiserate with the bereaved families.
Looking back at a similar tragedy, not on a lake but on a road near Konongo; fifteen kids of the Obogu Saviour Church perished when they were returning from a religious activity in Koforidua in the Eastern Region.
The July 2025 accident was so heartbreaking that it attracted the attention of many who heard it; the sheer number and the ages of the victims, with some parents losing as many as two kids, had all who heard it talking.
The Vice President did not hear it and could not have expressed sympathy or condolences to the bereaved families.
It was interesting when her spokesperson who, during a TV discussion programme was told about the tragedy, said her boss had not heard about it. She even rebuked the host for not alerting her about the accident.
Anyway, even after the TV programme, no belated expression of condolences from the Vice President was rendered, which makes us wonder whether indeed the spokesperson’s boss did not hear about the Obogu Saviour Church tragedy and the subsequent mass burial of the victims.
The Vice President’s swift reaction to the Volta Lake tragedy and her eventual visit to the Oti Region to physically express condolences to the bereaved families has prompted questions as to whether the nation’s mother is not being selective in her treatment of national issues.
After three or four months since the Obogu Saviour Church tragedy, the bereaved families should be going through the healing process; hearing the swiftness with which the Vice President reacted to the Volta Lake tragedy would have them wondering whether the gesture is not selective. Four legs good, two legs bad, Animal Farm mentality that is.