Introduction:
Ghanaians will be heading to the polls in Dec. 2024 to elect the successor of President Nana Akufo-Addo and 275 lawmakers. This will be the ninth presidential and parliamentary election held in West Africa since 1992. The term of office of the current President ends on Jan. 7, 2025, and Ghanaians will need a new set of leaders for the next four years.
Political activities in the country are yet to shape up with the Presidential candidates of the two dominating political parties, the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the National Democratic Congress (NDC), yet to outdoor their manifestos.
The one-term Ghanaian President who doubles as the NDC flagbearer, John Dramani Mahama, is contesting the current Vice President and the NPP flagbearer, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, as well as other presidential candidates.
Resurfacing of fact-checked claims:
With barely ten months to the election, some claims fact-checked in the past have been resurfacing on social media in the country. DUBAWA Ghana is highlighting some of these previously fact-checked claims in this report as part of its campaign against misinformation and disinformation in the West African country.
Fact-checked claim 1:
The first previously fact-checked claim that has surfaced in the media had to do with a comment purportedly made by the ex-Ghanaian leader John Dramani Mahama in the lead up to the 2020 election in Ghana. He was reported to have confessed to peddling falsehood during campaign seasons.
“As politicians, before the masses can accept you and endorse you, you will have to do the unthinkable. You will have to go beyond what you yourself believe you can do.
If you have to lie to them, you do so, and this is our way of doing things as political actors,” ABCNews reported Mr Mahama as saying to some chiefs in the Volta Region in 2020.
A Google search conducted by DUBAWA showed the screenshot of the front page of the ABC newspaper published in 2020, which has been shared widely on social media here, here, and here in 2023 and 2024.
The claim was fact-checked by DUBAWA on Oct. 2, 2020, and was found to be “mostly false.” Read the full report here.
Fact-checked Claim 2:
Another previously fact-checked claim that has surfaced online ahead of the 2024 election was a letter allegedly authored by a former Finance Minister, Dr Kwabena Duffuor, in which he accused Mr Mahama of having a “serious alcohol addiction.”
DUBAWA fact-checked the claim and found it to be false. “The letter went viral on various media platforms and was doctored. A spokesperson for Dr Duffour says that the purported letter did not come from the team,” DUBAWA’s report said.
However, some users of X (formerly Twitter) have shared the refuted claim in 2024 here, here, and here.
“This issue of ‘alcoholism’ in Ghana’s politics was brought to [bear] by Atta Mills [late Ghanaian president], former Finance Minister and NDC flagbearer aspirant Dr Duffour; you can’t fault anyone for saying something the NDC leaders have already made public,” an X user wrote on Feb. 29, 2024.
Another X user wrote:
“Hon. Kwabena Duffour…has stated clearly in his letter to the office of the General Secretary dated 7 May 2023: We do not elect a flagbearer with serious alcohol.”
The purported letter was fact-checked by DUBAWA here on May 12, 2023, and found to be false.
“This is outrightly fake news. It is not coming from us,” the spokesperson for Dr Duffuor’s campaign team, Antonio Edem Asinyo, told DUBAWA Ghana.
Conclusion
With the start of the processes leading to the election of a new President and 275 lawmakers in Ghana, some previously fact-checked claims may surface in the media, including social media, before and after the Dec. 7, 2024 poll.
