Why ‘Sika mmpɛ dede’ is social media’s takeaway from Akufo-Addo speech

Government communicators over the past few weeks partly blamed the fast-depreciating local currency on speculations.

This critique found expression in President Akufo-Addo’s speech on Sunday night.

According to him, negative speculation about the cedi has an attendant effect on how the forex market reacts.

At a time when the government is struggling to restore confidence in an economy in crisis, the president says such conversations are pointless.

“Fellow Ghanaians, as the French would say, l’argent n’aime pas le bruit, to wit, money does not like noise, sika mmpɛ dede. Where there is chaos, where there is noise, where there is unrest, you will not find money. If you talk down your money, it will go down. If you allow some unidentifiable person to talk down your money, it will go down,” he said in his address.

He was speaking on the state of the economy and measures taken to salvage the situation as talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) continue.

The country is in an economic crisis leaving a dire impact on all sectors.

Ghana is currently at the doors of the Fund seeking a possible $3 billion support amid intensifying hardship, skyrocketing fuel prices, a rising cost of living and a depreciating cedi.

The reactions from social media to this comment are not even about the ‘what’ but rather, the manner in which he said it.

Essentially, this will not be the first time the multi-lingual President has used a different tongue to articulate his point, especially regarding finances.

Between his ‘y3te sika su, nanso 3kom di y3n’ comment in 2016 as a presidential candidate and today’s ‘Sika mp3 dede’ as President, something has to give, according to Ghanaians on social media.

It is trending on the microblogging website, Twitter with nearly 3,000 tweets garnered so far.

Here are some of the reactions: