The Executive Director of the Institute for Democratic Governance (IDEG) is faulting Ghana’s political leaders and some media practitioners of suffering from bouts of verbal diarrhea when engaging foreign diplomats. Dr Emmanuel Akwetey says these leaders speak loosely and anyhow, almost oblivious of the need to protect their national integrity. His remarks to Joy News on Tuesday are in reaction to damning revelations by the leaked US diplomatic cables by wikileaks in which some top echelons of Ghana’s political and media front have been quoted jabbing their political opponents, and sometimes their own colleagues in the most demeaning manner. While some of the public officials quoted in the leaks have publicly denied the statements attributed to them, others have confirmed the damning revelations. Dr. Akwetey told Joy News the statements attributed to the 'leaders' “embarrass all of us.” Like the mirror, Akwetey said the leaks are just playing back to our public officials “how we are conducting ourselves without knowing.” “I see it (leaks) as reflecting our culture and practice which is damning and which ridicules us in the eyes of the diplomats.” “What is powerful about it is the fact that we seem to have become totally oblivious of the fact that international diplomacy is to advance the interest of foreign powers in our country. And those foreign powers thrive on information,” he added. “As a country, as a nation, as a democratizing entity, we are too loose. The openness is good but our nationalist consciousness of what is Ghanaian and Ghanaian interest is so weak and that we speak anyhow, and it is not good for us.” He said the leaks though divisive, have brought the painful realization that the diplomats are only here to gather information to advance their interests in their country and Ghanaians must be more conscious of that. Emmanuel Akwetey noted that the increasing politics of insults and personalization that has saturated our body politic is what informs these private statements to the diplomats and only ends up ridiculing us in the eyes of our diplomats. Government is yet to make any official statement on what has become increasingly controversial and embarrassing. But Dr. Akwetey has proffered a way forward to government and all public officers, counseling that government’s role, and that of the public officers, going forward, must proceed from the maxim that they must at all times protect the nation Ghana in all their dealings with the diplomats. Asked if there is the possibility of a wikileaks report about him, Dr. Akwetey offered a big, loud laugh, saying he is "conscious of engaging them." "It will be good for me to know what the report says," he added.