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There was a near-row in the studios of Metro TV between Messrs Kwesi Pratt Jnr and Nana Akomea during the airing of one of the station’s flagship programmes, Good Morning Ghana after both personalities took strong exception to each other’s choice of words.

The two, Managing Editor of the Insight newspaper and the Director of Communications of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), were panelists on the show and were discussing the recent impasse between Ghana and La Côte d'Ivoire.

The Ivorian side of the Ghana-Cote d’Ivoire border, it would be recalled, was closed to the public on Tuesday after it was opened to business and passengers on Monday afternoon. The continued closure of the Ivorian side of the border affected revenue generation at the Ghanaian side of the border.

The Ivorian side of the border was first closed to the public on Friday, September 21, 2012, following heavy gunfire on the Ivorian side, which reportedly led to the death of five taxi drivers. The Ivoirian authorities suspected that the attacks in their country were carried out by militias exiled in Ghana.

However, following intense high level negotiations between the two countries, Ivoirian authorities opened their side of the Ghana-Cote d’Ivoire border to allow free flow of people and goods.

Speaking to the issue, the newspaper editor cum social commentator bemoaned the current sorry state of Ghana’s neighbouring country, once easily French West Africa's most prosperous state, contributing over 40% of the region's total exports. He repeatedly made reference to invisible foreign hands from the West unremittingly poking their noses into the affairs of democratically elected African governments, which he observed was responsible for the toppling of the Laurent Gbagbo administration.

“…the problem in La Côte d'Ivoire was not just an electoral issue…it was a case of the Western countries having a vested interest…and wanting to remove Gbagbo at any cost and looking for excuses to remove an African government in order to restore their own puppet,” he stated.

But Nana Akomea found Kwesi Pratt’s argument untenable cautioning against subscribing every African problem to foreigners. He pointed out that in some situations; it was unavoidable that the West intervened.

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