SPEECH DELIVERED BY ALBERT KWABENA DWUMFOUR, PRESIDENT OF THE GHANA JOURNALISTS ASSOCIATION, AT A NEWS CONFERENCE HELD AT THE GHANA INTERNATIONAL PRESS CENTRE, ON JANUARY 22, 2025, TO DISCUSS CRITICAL MEDIA MATTERS THAT NEED URGENT REDRESS IN 2025
Members of the National Executive of the GJA, Colleague media practitioners, Distinguished invited guests, Ladies and gentlemen.
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Good afternoon to you all.
We are in the fourth week of 2025, and the first month of the year is almost coming to an end. But I believe goodwill messages do not go stale and, therefore, cannot be spiked. Inspired by that belief, and on behalf of the National Executive of the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA), I wish all of you here and all media practitioners across the country a Happy and Prosperous New Year. We pray that 2025 will be better than 2024, as we look forward to resetting the wrongs in the media landscape. This may be an arduous task to achieve but we believe it is possible.
Colleagues, the National Executive of the GJA decided, at its retreat in December 2023, to use the National Constitution Day on January 7 every year to set our expectations for the year and discuss pertinent issues of concern in the media landscape. In that regard, we held our maiden National Constitution Day Press Conference on January 8, 2024, to set the tone for what we expected to be a challenging year. Given the proactive initiatives we outlined at that press conference and how we sought to discharge our responsibilities, you will agree with me that the media generally passed the test of election coverage in 2024. Once again, the GJA wishes to commend all media practitioners and houses across the country for doing a great job for our beloved country. We also wish to thank our partners, both corporate and individuals, who helped to make our year successful.
Colleagues, talking about elections, it is appropriate, at this point, to congratulate His Excellency President John Dramani Mahama on winning the 2024 Presidential Election. For the avoidance of doubt, President Mahama is a member of the GJA, and being one of us, we believe that he shares in the frustrations and plights of journalists and must be seen as working for the interest of the media. We are indeed proud to have once again our member emerge as the Number One Gentleman of Mother Ghana. We also wish to congratulate another member of the GJA, Mr James Gunu, who has been nominated by the President as Volta Regional Minister-designate. We wish our comrades the best in national governance and pledge to support them to achieve their goals.
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Absence of Ministry of Information
Colleagues, having congratulated President Mahama on his election as President of the Republic of Ghana and Mr Gunu on his nomination as Volta Regional Minister-designate, and also having underlined the fact that they are members of the GJA and, therefore, the pride of place journalists and the media occupies in government, it is pertinent to ask: Where is the Ministry of Information now? We want clarification from the President on the rationale for the removal of the Ministry of Information from his government portfolios. We observed that whilst the First Mahama Administration saw the merger of Communication and Information ministries, the Second Mahama Administration appears to completely dissolve the Ministry of Information. We are appealing for clarity on this new policy direction. We also want to know the budget-holding Ministry for the state-owned Ghana Broadcasting Corporation and Ghana News Agency. Our members in these state-owned media houses want some clarity on the new policy direction.
Colleagues, the nomination of a Minister of State for Government Communication may be instructive. However, we want to know if the Government has any plan of continuing with the Media Development programmes of the previous government, including the ‘Media Capacity Enhancement Programme’ and the ‘Coordinated Mechanism on the Safety of Journalists’.
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Key Activities For 2025
Colleagues, the National Executive had an extraordinary meeting last week to plan for activities of the GJA for this year. One of the highlights of the activities is the holding of Annual General Meeting (AGM) by the end of the first quarter of the year (March) as outlined in the GJA Constitution 2004. We shall publish a notice to that effect in due course.
Another key activity on our calendar this year is GJA National Elections. All too soon, our tenure is coming to an end (on 30th June, 2025). We have tentatively scheduled to hold elections in June 2025. Details of the elections will be announced in due course. The elections will be organised at both national and regional levels. As resolved in our last Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) last year, there will be elections in the six newly created regions, namely, Savannah, North East, Bono East, Ahafo, Western North and Oti. We encourage members in these regions to take active part in the electioneering.
Colleagues, this year, we also intend to commemorate World Press Freedom Day (WPFD) in a special way. You may recall that we celebrated WPFD 2024 in unique fashion, when, for the first time in the history of GJA, we took the national event to the regions by commemorating WPFD in Koforidua, the Eastern Regional capital. We will execute another innovation this year by making WPFD an evening event and using the occasion to honour distinguished individuals and institutions who have championed the cause of media freedom over the years. While showing appreciation to these champions of media freedom, we believe such recognition will also help raise many more workers in media freedom vineyard.
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Attacks Against Media Practitioners
Colleagues, talking about World Press Freedom Day, one thing that readily comes to mind is attacks against journalists and other media practitioners. This phenomenon has been a major drawback to Ghana’s World Press Freedom Index in recent years. We are poised to reset this narrative. We shall continue to defend media freedom, and, in so doing, we shall not tolerate attacks against media practitioners. We call on all stakeholders, including the Executive, Legislature and Judiciary, as well as civil society organisations, to help address this unfortunate situation. More specifically, we urge the Ghana Police Service to act swiftly in arresting perpetrators of such crime and prosecute them accordingly.
Colleagues, just last week, we received the disturbing news of barbaric attack on Ohemeng Tawiah of the Multimedia Group Limited. He was brutally attacked by a mob of illegal small scale miners operating in the Offin Shelter Belt Forest Reserve. Ohemeng Tawiah, who was leading a Joy News Team to cover a police operation to clamp down on the activities of the illegal miners, was nearly killed by the mob. This is an excerpt of the report on the attack published on Myjoyonline
“He sustained head and chest injuries, twisted fingers, and multiple cuts on his body after surviving a machete attack, in what appears to be an attempt to cut off his right leg”.
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Colleagues, this is what happened to a journalist working in the interest of the public and Mother Ghana; a journalist working to ensure that our land and natural resources are not devastated and dissipated; a journalist working to ensure that children are not born with deformities as a result of contamination of the environment with hazardous substances; a journalist working to ensure that we all don’t suffer health hazards from the activities of illegal small scale miners; and yet, we have all kept quiet on this matter.
Colleagues, in the matter of Ohemeng Tawiah and another outstanding barbaric case of assault involving Erastus Asare Donkor also of the Multimedia Group Limited, we appeal to President Mahama to take a personal interest in them and ensure that the perpetrators are arrested, arraigned and punished for their crimes. We wish to remind the President of the commitments he made to the media on July 7, 2024, at the Kempinski Gold Coast Hotel, during his media engagement. On that occasion, I, on behalf of the GJA, asked the President (then Flagbearer of the National Democratic Congress) about his thoughts on the privatisation of the state-owned media and assault of media practitioners. The President said he was against both instances and pledged to promote the interests of the media. This is the time we expect the President to redeem his pledge. It is said that “Action speaks louder than words”.
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Ahmed Suale Case
Colleagues, another case that has baffled the nation and, indeed, the international community over the years is the murder of investigative journalist Ahmed Suale. It is very unfortunate and, indeed, disappointing that six years after the murder of Ahmed Suale, no arrest has been made. What is even more disheartening is the lackadaisical police investigations into the murder. You may recall the shocking disclosure made by the former Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Godfred Yeboah Dame, in February 2024 that his office had not received from the Police any docket fit for prosecution or action on the murder of Ahmed Suale. This was five years after the murder of the investigative journalist. Just last week, the Member of Parliament (MP) for Gomoa Central, Kwame Asare-Obeng, popularly called A-Plus, publicly indicated that he had given information to the Police Criminal Investigations Department (CID) regarding the suspected killers of Ahmed Suale. He went further to threaten that if the Police did not come public with investigations into the killing, he would be compelled to publish the name of the suspect he submitted to the Police. The comments made by A-Plus have raised many questions that cast doubt on the willingness of the Police to resolve this matter.
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Way Forward on Ahmed Suale
Given the fast-eroding trust and confidence in the Police in respect of investigation, arrest and prosecution of suspects involved in the murder of Ahmed Suale, the GJA has decided to take some decisive steps to resolve the matter, including seeking redress in international forums. The steps we envisage to take include, but not limited to, the following:
First, we are giving the Ghana Police Service up to the end of March 2025 to come out with something concrete on the investigation, arrest and prosecution of suspects in the murder case. We urge the Inspector-General of Police (IGP), the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice-designate and the President to take keen interest in this case.
Second, we shall, in the interim, organise a series of activities, including press conferences at the end of February and March, to update the media and the general public on the case. We shall also be briefing our international partners, including the diplomatic missions, the Federation of African Journalists (FAJ) and the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) about developments on this case. In fact, our international partners are very much interested in this case. They are willing and ready to take the case to any level internationally for resolution. I just returned from a meeting of FAJ in Rwanda and the Ahmed Suale case was prominent in the discussions.
Third, if by the end of March 2025, we have not seen or heard satisfactory reaction to our demand, we shall proceed to the Economic Community of West Africa States (ECOWAS) Community Court of Justice to seek resolution of this matter. We are preparing fervently towards that end.
Colleagues, we also intend to take the case of Latif Iddrisu formerly of Multimedia to the ECOWAS Community Court of Justice if nothing concrete comes from the Police by the end of March 2025. Latif was brutally assaulted by unidentified police officers at the headquarters of the Criminal Investigations Department while covering a demonstration by some supporters of the NDC. The assault damaged his skull and since then, he has been battling for life. However, six years after the incident, police investigations have been rather tardy. The Police claim they do not have or cannot find evidence for prosecution. They further claim the CCTV at the crime scene was faulty on that fateful day Latif was assaulted. They Police are saying since crime has no expiry date, anytime or day they would find evidence, they would initiate prosecution. We shall proceed to the ECOWAS Community Court of Justice to hear what they will also say on this case.
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Obuasi Killings
Colleagues, the GJA does not always raise alarm or go to town only when media practitioners are attacked. We are also equally concerned about the rights and welfare of everybody. Indeed, the constitutional mandate of the media, which is drawn from Article 162(5) of the 1992 Constitution, enjoins the media to uphold the “principles, provisions and objectives” of the Constitution. So we have a mandate to uphold the provisions of the Constitution, including the human rights provisions guaranteed under Chapter Five of the Constitution. It is on the basis of this mandate that we express deep concern about the violent clash between soldiers and illegal miners in Obuasi last Saturday, which led to the death of seven people. The illegal miners reportedly encroached on the concession of AngloGold Ashanti and that resulted in confrontation between soldiers guarding the concession and the illegal miners. Inasmuch as we do not condone illegality, we think there should be better ways of engagement among the parties to resolve concerns.
Colleagues, we hereby send our deepest condolences to the bereaved family for the loss of their dear ones. We call on AngloGold Ashanti and the Military High Command to initiate proactive and productive means of engagement with the communities in the operation area of the mining company. We also urge the community members to be calm and exercise maximum restraint in the circumstances. We urge them to use peaceful means to seek redress to their grievances rather than resorting to violence. Need we affirm that violence can never win?
We also want to add our voice to the many voices and calls on the President to as a matter of urgency end this galamsey menace.
We want to take this opportunity to wish a member of the fraternity, staff member of Angel Broadcasting Network and CEO of Kofi TV, Kofi Adomah well in his recovery from his ordeal. We equally commiserate with all media practitioners who have in one way or the other suffered harm in the course of their duty.
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Media Freedom & Responsibility
Colleagues, our attention has been drawn to a video circulating on social media which shows Blessed Godsbrain Smart, aka Captain Smart of Onua TV / FM, inciting the youth of Obuasi to invade the concession of AngloGold Ashanti Mines and mine it to make a living. We have been inundated with calls and messages to act swiftly on this matter in order not to re-enact the Rwandan Genocide in Ghana. Our investigations indicate that the video circulating on social media predates 2025. Therefore, we cannot establish the video (and its contents) as an immediate causal effect to the actions of the youth in Obuasi and the death of nine people. However, what we can establish is that the contents of the video are vile, repugnant, malicious, outrageous and lawless. Such contents may even be proscribed in the ghettos and so we do not expect media studios to ascribe to them.
Colleagues, our resolve to defending media freedom is unflinching. And we remain steadfast in our quest to denouncing media irresponsibility. We need to appreciate the fact that freedom goes with responsibility and that the media is an agent of construction, not destruction. We urge media practitioners and institutions to be professional at all times and help make Mother Ghana great and strong.
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Colleagues, we call on the media fraternity to support us in these matters so that we can collectively defend the independence and freedom of the media and Ghanaians in general. We need a united front now than ever before.
Long live press freedom in Ghana! Long live GJA!! Long live Ghana!!! Thank you for your kind attention.
