The Counselor Lutterodt conundrum
Last Saturday, we were at Sunyani for the VGMA Nominees Jam and boy was it good!
Advertisement
This was my third attendance to the nominees jam on the roll and for the third time it was an amazing experience to be part of.
In Cape Coast two years ago, the crowd was massive and the performers were awesome, it was the same in Ho last year and Sunyani did not disappoint as well.
If you have not done that yet, find last Monday’s edition of your authoritative Graphic Showbiz and read Kofi Duah’s excellent report on the event.
The people of the Brong-Ahafo Region who trooped to the Sunyani Coronation Park in their numbers were the real MVPs in this whole caboodle. They made the show what it was meant to be with their response to the good performances on stage.
Before I end it on this subject, let me commend Charterhouse and Vodafone for this addition to the Vodafone Ghana Music Awards.
Taking the most prominent event on the calendar to the people must be the best thing since the invention of sliced bread.
They get to see the stars and see them perform while singing, dancing and screaming along. Can we have more than one in a given year?
There is one name I have always found difficult to spell without checking if I got it right, well apart from Schweinsteiger and Mkhitaryan. That name is Lutterodt. From the days of the actor Victor Lutterodt to that of the counselor George Lutterodt, it has always been a difficult one for me to spell.
My piece today, however, is not about how to spell his name, but rather the national recognition the younger Lutterodt and counselor has become.
The man whose full name is Cyril George Carstensen Lutterodt and because he is an ordained minister, he has the title Rev. to add to his many names.
You have probably not been watching or listening to the radio or you are not active on social media, including Whatsapp if you can hit your chest and say you have not come across the name Counselor Lutterodt or any of the things he is purported to have said.
Over the last few years, the man who works at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital as a radiologist, as I understand it to be, has become the hottest name when it comes to issues bordering on relationships counselling and such.
His opinion is sought on all manner of programmes that treat any topic related to the subject.
Radio presenters and their producers love to have him talk on their shows. The fact that he could speak a few more languages than the next guy helps him to talk on different radio stations. He has over the years courted a lot of following and his contributions are appreciated by many.
However, it would seem over that in spite of the fact that viewers and listeners of programmes such as Tales from the Powder Room on GhOne and Abeiku Santana’s show Okay FM like to hear him speak, there are equally a good number of people who think he is wasting the airtime allocated to him.
A fact has to be established: Counselor Lutterodt is opinionated. He stands by his opinions whether other members on the panel, presenter or the listening public agree with him or not. I have sat with him on shows and so I know how he can push his views.
Sometimes you feel he is aiming for controversy with the kinds of the things he says and the manner in which he says them. It is in view of this that many think that some of the views he shares are unbecoming of one who calls himself a counselor.
They think some of his views are outrageous and the public doesn’t have to be subjected to most of the things he says.
Some have even gone as far as calling him a misogynist and that it is wrong for such comments that come from him to be tolerated in the media.
The counselor has said very outrageous things over the years and recently he said one of the most outrageous when on a GhanaWeb video interview he confidently advised “young people who are yet to marry to check the thickness of their partner's lens to avoid future issues.”
He said that on the back of his assertion that wearing glasses with thick lenses can affect sexual performance.
There have been some very big ones he has uttered during interviews that have become topical on social media and other public places.
When he recently called out Kofi Adjorlolo’s girlfriend and suggested that she would be the death of him many suggested that he had gone too far with his comments.
Following that he had media spats with actresses and female broadcasters such as Lydia Forson, Jocelyn Dumas and Nana Aba Anamoah who felt he had crossed a line and he needed to be stopped. He responded by saying that the likes of Dumas and Anamoah had reached a stage where they cannot marry anymore.
Last year, the Ghana Psychological Council (GPC) warned the popular counselor to stop parading himself as a counselor because he was not certified as professional per the law ACT 857 hence he was not supposed to give counseling service.
Of course the typical George Lutterodt would respond appropriately and respond he did. He said the council had not written to him and if it did he would respond appropriately. That beside him saying he did not know of the existence of such a council.
Many have said that Lutterodt has over stayed his welcome as a radio and television counselor and that the stations ought to stop inviting him.
The stations of course keep inviting him since he helps to make the news. He is a sure banker for making the kind of comment that would warrant people asking where he made it and would subsequently look out for him.
Thus for most radio and television stations, they have a kind of marriage of inconvenience with the counselor; they probably don’t like the way and manner in which he expresses his views, but they love the attention that those views bring to the stations.
For me though I think it is not right to get someone off the radio or TV, as some have demanded, because of his views. We should be tolerant enough to give everyone the opportunity to share their view, so long as they are not flouting any law or inciting people to violence or anything negative.
However, as individuals we can decided what to watch or listen to. That is why I try not to listen to him and not watch him, because quite frankly some of his views are very opprobrious in my view, to say the least. And so the power is in your hands or your remote and you alone can solve the Counselor Lutterodt conundrum!