Claim: President of the World Bank has asked Ghana’s president, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, to stop borrowing and fix his country.
Verdict:While the president of the World Bank had asked the government to hold down on non-concessional borrowing, he did not ask the government to “fix the country.”
Full Text
A post shared by a popular Ghanaian blog, Ghana Celebrities, has gone viral on different social media platforms. In the post, the president of the World Bank is reported to have told the government of Ghana to stop borrowing and fix her country.
The post has generated so many comments and has been shared by one other popular Ghanaian blog, Aba_the_great1. At the time of going to press, the post had received 207 likes and seven comments.
Verification
At a recent virtual Media Roundtable discussion by the World Bank for some journalists in Western and Central Africa, the president of the World Bank, David Malpas, made some observations about Ghana’s current status.
His comment was a response to a question posed by a Ghanaian journalist, George Wiafe, who sought his view on Ghana’s debt stock. Although Malpas had advised the government to hold down on borrowing as a result of future impacts, he did not wade into the #FixTheCountry campaign which has become a major topic in Ghana.
In the original news article regarding the issue by Myjoyonline.com, Mr Malpas was quoted as saying “holding down the non-concessional debt means higher interest rate debt because that burdens the further generations”, thus making the social media post misleading.
#FixIt Campaign and Misinformation in Ghana
Since the beginning of the #FixTheCountry, #FixTheCountryNow, #FixTheGhana campaign —a youth-led social media campaign in Ghana to demand accountability and development from political leaders— the tendency for social media users to share old photos and videos to pass them as new has become common, making the work of fact-checking organizations in Ghana very timely.
While Dubawa and other fact-checking organizations in Ghana are working to curb misinformation in this period as we do every day, it is important for social media users and media consumers to have knowledge of some digital tools that could be used to verify information that comes in the form of images and videos. Dubawa has therefore put together some basic tools and tips for fact-checking images and videos. Familiarity with the tools and tips will enhance the ability to mitigate the spread of misleading information such as the one in this fact check.
Claim: The legal team of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), led by Mr. Tsatsu Tsikata, has placed an injunction on the yet to be witnessed investiture of the president-elect and has petitioned the ICC on the matter.
The NDC legal team has denied any knowledge of the said claim and has stated emphatically that the party has not filed any case in court yet, neither has it petitioned the ICC. Therefore, the claim is false.
Full Text
The controversy over the results of the 2020 Presidential and Parliamentary elections rages on as members of the NDC continue their protest over the disputed results.
The minority in parliament took the protest to the office of the Electoral Commission (EC) to present a petition to the election management body.
Officials of the EC were, however, not available to receive the petition, an act which further worsened the already sullied relationship between the two bodies.
The EC later in a press release explained that the commission was not given prior notification of the minority’s action.
The party took their challenge of the parliamentary election results, particularly in the Techiman South constituency a notch higher when it publicly collated the results of all the 266 polling stations in the constituency.
The NDC accused the EC of rigging the election in favour of the NPP candidate, Martin Adjei Mensah Korsah who was officially declared Member of Parliament elect.
The party has also rejected the results of the presidential election which saw the incumbent president, Nana Addo Dankwa Akuffo-Addo, declared president-elect.
As the controversy rages, lots of claims are being circulated on social and traditional media platforms about the elections.
One such claim is a screenshot of a piece of information that suggests that the NDC’s legal team has placed an injunction on the investiture of President Nana Akuffo-Addo.
The claim has gone viral on several social media platforms, including Facebook and WhatsApp.
Verification
To ascertain the veracity or otherwise of the claim, Dubawa contacted a member of the NDC legal team, Abraham Amaliba on phone.
Mr. Amaliba denied knowledge of the claim and said the NDC had not yet filed any case in court over the disputed results.
“No, we don’t have any of that happening. We have not filed anything yet. ICC, no. I don’t know if another group has done that, but as a party, no. I can confirm to you,” Mr. Amaliba stated.
Conclusion
The NDC legal team has denied any knowledge of the said claim and has stated emphatically that the party has not filed any case in court yet, nor has it petitioned the ICC. Therefore, the claim is false.
The presidential candidate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Nana Addo Dankwa Akuffo-Addo, who garnered 6,730,413 votes representing 51.595%, is president-elect of the Republic of Ghana.
He was followed closely by the presidential candidate of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), John Dramani Mahama, who had 6,214,889 votes representing 47.366%.
Claim: A video on Twitter depicts Akufo-Addo as saying his tribal agenda is to disenfranchise people in the far north of Volta.
False. The video clip was taken out of context to share a false narrative. It is originally a video of Akufo-Addo’s zoom meeting video published in July 2020 where he was heard advising his team to focus on records, competencies, abilities and achievements and outputs and not on gender and tribal agenda.
Full text:
A Twitter user has shared a video today, which has Akufo-Addo seen stating that “we have some tribal agenda to disenfranchise people in the far north in the Volta’’
The video also has multiple stamps of caution attached to the video frames reading: “REVEALED, Akufo Addo caught on camera listen closely” and “STOP AKUFO-ADDO, STOP THE DICTATORSHIP!”.
Dubawa subjected the acclaimed 27 second video on Twitter to analytical scrutiny and found the video to be taken out of context. Results of the video frames examined on Yandex reverse image search revealed that the claimant’s video was taken from President Akufo’s Zoom meeting held with members of his campaign communication team where his comments were stylized and twisted to miscommunicate his true claims.
A screenshot from the actual video where the claimant took the claim from – President Akufo-Addo holding a meeting with his campaign communication team
Context of video clip
The Zoom meeting took place on 13th July 2020 while Ghana was still under lockdown and the crux of the meeting was to lay a strategic plan towards the December presidential polls in Ghana; alongside campaign strategy for the NPP and Akufo-Addo. The actual video which was shared on YouTube on 13 July 2020 by NET 2 TV, showed Akufo-Addo discussing the need for his communication team to focus on the Unity of Ghana and the achievements of his tenure; and not focus on sentiments such as tribe, religion, and gender as a basis for voting.
It was along the line of this theme that the claimant cut some part of Akufo-Addo’s words to purport the claim in question.
The actual context of Akufo-Addo statement’s captured reads below:
“whether you are Muslim or Christian I am strongly a Christian and am part of the big Christian majority in Ghana but it shouldn’t be part of our discourse, and clearly, gender should not be also part of our discourse. We are looking at all kinds of records and competencies. So it should be possible in discussing these statements before the Ghanian people to be a discourse about: competencies, abilities, records, achievements, output. So I think that is something I would like us to stress so much, not some tribal agenda that we want to disenfranchise the people in the far north in the Volta. I don’t understand where that is coming from. It is deliberate and artificial; any candidate of valor knows that it is artificial and it’s being done for a very short time political game. I am not sure if that’s a legitimate way of advancing a political agenda. Certainly, it is not the one that would love to promote”.
Also, it is obvious that the actual video is not a leaked one, contrary to what the claimant cautioned on the short clip to push the narrative. The original video has been made available to the public since July 2020.
Conclusion
The claim that Akufo-Addo is seen and heard stating that ‘’we have some tribal agenda to disenfranchise people in the far north in the Volta’’ is false.
The claimant’s video shared on Twitter was cut from a zoom meeting Akufo Addo had with his campaign communication team in July 2020, where he was heard advising his team to focus on records, competencies, abilities and achievements and outputs and not on gender and tribal agenda. The claimant stylized Akufo-Addo’s statement in mid-sentence from its actual context to achieve an entirely different narrative.
Akufo Addo’s picture is missing on ballot papers at Awutu Twimi polling station in the Central Region and the Alhaji Salam Grinding Mill polling station in the Bawku Central Constituency.
The CODEO Constituency Supervisor present at the polling station has confirmed that a voter noticed it, reported it to an NPP agent and an alarm was raised. The Electoral Commission has also confirmed it in a press statement.
Full text:
A claim circulating on WhatsApp is stating that there are ballot papers at the Awutu Twimi polling station in the Central Region which do not have the picture of NPP presidential candidate, Akufo-Addo on them. Videos circulating on Twitter also show this claim
It reads below:
Verification:
Dubawa verified from the CODEO Constituency Supervisor (CS) officer stationed at the Awutu Senya West, Awutu Twinmi polling station where the incident is reported to have happened, and it was confirmed to be true.
The CODEO CS stated that a voter detected the missing picture of Akufo-Addo on the ballot paper, and reported it to an NPP agent who consequently raised the alarm.
Upper East region incident
A similar claim was made in the Upper East region.
Verdict: True. The presidential ballot paper was issued to a voter at the Alhaji Salam Grinding Mill polling centre in Bawku Central constituency without the image of candidate Akufo-Addo.
Verification
Citi News’s Upper East Regional Correspondent confirmed that the incident occured at the Alhaji Salam Grinding Mill polling center in the West Natinga electoral area of the Bawku Central constituency.
He reported that, “It is not a rumour. This happened.”
“It happened at the Alhaji Salam Grinding Mill polling station in the West Natinga Electoral area of the Bawku Central constituency… The first person voted with part of that ballot paper being torn. The same repeated the second time and it caught the attention of the party agent of the NPP and he moved to rectify it. They recalled that ballot and issued a new ballot to the voter. The regional directorate of the NPP tells me that they have made a complaint to the EC but the matter, for now, has been resolved,” he said in a live interview on Citi TV.
Based on the ballot paper serial number, we confirmed from the Electoral Commission’s master sheet for polling stations that the ballot paper in the photo was indeed for the Bawku Central constituency.
Both incidents have been confirmed in a press statement by the Electoral Commission which says it will deal with the officers who tampered with the ballot papers.
The claim that there is a missing picture of Akufo-Addo on ballot papers at Awutu Twimi and Alhaji Salam grinding mill polling station is true. CODEO officers and Citi FM respondents present on site have confirmed it, and the incident has been reported. The Electoral Commission has also confirmed both incidents in a press statement and has promised to deal with the officers who tampered with the ballot papers.
Akufo-Addo was caught on video accepting a bribe in 2017 in his capacity as President
Forensic analysis on the viral video shows it to be doctored while a much clearer and full version of the video found reveals the context of the video to be an occasion of a donation of GHS 40,000 and 1000 t-shirts of Akufo-Addo and Bawumia by one Hajia Fawzia given to support Akufo-Addo ahead of the 2016 elections.
Full text
A video circulating which has also been turned into a GIF by some social media users is purporting that President Akufo-Addo was caught on video receiving a bribe. This has been discussed extensively on mainstream media and social media by the opposition party NDC with the narrative purporting that Akufo-Addo took a USD40,000 bribe in 2017 in his capacity as president, in order not to sack Alhaji Abbas who is the director of Urban Roads.
A situational description of the scenes in both the viral video and the supposed original video was given and a translation of some of the conversations heard was made from the local Ghanaian dialect (Twi) utterances to English, to establish the context of the video. It was found that the part conveniently cut to suit the claim that Akufo-Addo was receiving the bribe (4;47-4:56), was a moment Akufo-Addo hesitated as he was writing down the name of the donor (Hajia Fawia), who offered a sum of money (GHS 40,000) and 1,000 T-shirts of Akufo-Addo and Bawumia inscribed with ‘Arise for Change 2016’, which was captured in the second supposed original video. It was also stated a number of times by the donor, and the men who accompanied her that it was her little way of helping Akufo-Addo and a show of her support to him.
Both the viral video and supposed original video start with two women sitting in a sitting room; one on the left is in glasses and scrolling through her phone and the other on the right (who later introduces herself in the video as Hajia Fawzia to Akufo-Addo) had bowed her head before, raises it later to hold a conversation with the person behind the camera documenting the scene (who later introduces himself as Yakubu in the video to Akufo-Addo).
Transcript of conversation
Hajia Fawzia: (mutters some words)
Yakubu: Eh? Aaah
Hajia Fawzia: (keeps muttering and points to herself)
Yakubu: (Giggles) So much
Some men are also seen and heard on the porch overlooking the sitting room, having a conversation.
A woman appears at the entrance of what is later identified to be an office and is heard greeting good morning in the background as one of the men from the porch in a black suit also appears and walks with Hajia Fawzia and person recording the video, Yakubu, into an office where Akufo-Addo is seen sitting at a desk and welcomes them.
In the office
(In the background) I am getting married and I said I’m coming to introduce you…
Akufo-Addo: You’re lucky
There is laughter, and Hajia Fawzia and the man in black suit sit opposite Akufo-Addo and the man is heard introducing the intent of the visit.
Akufo-Addo: And this morning?
Man in black suit: This morning is fine. It is this queen who went to see Aunty Ama…
Akufo Addo: Ama Busia?
Man in black suit: Yes, that she has some t-shirts and some little help that she wants to bring to you. But Aunty Ama said if she attempts to dress up and come here… but she knew I was coming here so… Her husband is the director of urban roads
Akufo-Addo: Oh, Transport Ministry?
Man in black suit: Yes, they are under Ministry of Transport
Akufo-Addo: Now they say they are called Highways
Man in black suit: That’s right. I think issues about civil servants are hard to discuss
(man and Akufo-Addo laugh)
Hajia Fawzia: We have been sending it, but we have realised that it doesn’t come
Akufo-Addo: Oh, I see. Okay…
Hajia Fawzia : We are meeting the wrong people
Man in black suit: So this morning, my first business is that I brought her to greet you so that whatever she has to say…
Akufo-Addo: Okay okay
Man in black suit: I think the t-shirts are in the car (motions for Hajia to speak)
Hajia Fawzia: I am so excited, I don’t even know what to say… Please this brother of mine brought me so I will let him do the talking
Another man who does not appear in the video but seems to be the one still behind the camera, later identified as Yakubu, is heard further introducing the purpose of the visit.
Yakubu: Yah, Nana, I think some time ago, Lt. Colonel Damoah met at Mama Busia’s house where I showed you some videos of how military people are trained,
Akufo-Addo: Yes, yes, yes (Akufo Addo nods in confirmation)
Yakubu: Ahaaa, since then I think the workload has been a lot so… they usually bring me a report of how they help and all, and I said no let’s go to Mama to inform her so that whatever they would like to do… maybe there are some proposals before you and some little items that they can also use to help out… so this is the little help we can also offer to help you. So this morning as we came, she said she has in her hands 40, 000 in addition to the T-shirts so that later, any help that there will be, we can communicate it….
The man in black suit stands to offer a parcel in a brown envelope to Akufo-Addo, who was busily noting down something on paper and did not appear to notice the gesture. He later lifts his head to notice and exclaims ‘oh’, receives it and continues to write.
Akufo-Addo: Please I need to have a name….
Hajia Fawzia : Hajia Fawzia
Akufo-Addo: Fawzia? I…A?
Hajia Fawzia: F- A- W- Z- I – A
Akufo-Addo: (Stops writing) Oh fantastic. And t-shirts?
Yakubu: Yes, a 1000 t-shirts
Akufo-Addo resumes writing
Man in black suit gives a proverb about the importance of the t-shirt and mentions his travel plans to Kumasi the next day and his intent to take some of the t-shirts
Akufo-Addo: So you will take it to them?
Man in black: Yes
Hajia Fawzia: The T-shirts, we had even already given some out, just that we hadn’t met the right people
Akufo-Addo: Is it of just me? Or me and him, the t-shirt…
Hajia Fawzia, Man in black suit and Yakubu chorus: Yes, of you and Bawumia
Yakubu: Or should I go and bring samples so you see?
Hajia Fawzia nods and motions for Yakubu to bring the samples, who leaves the scene.
The second supposed original 7 minute 15 second video continues with Yakubu, the man behind the camera, going outside into a car to get the-shirts. He later enters the office and Akufo-Addo comments that it looks really good and that the samples brought in should be left with him. Yakuba is seen handing a sample of the T-shirt with the inscription ‘Arise for Change 2016’ to the man in a black suit. There is some laughter while Yakubu also compliments the quality and texture of the t-shirt, and Hajia Fawzia reveals the location of the printing press.
Shortly after, Akufo-Addo thanks them for coming and Hajia Fawzia asks for a photo.
Akufo-Addo is heard asking for the name of the man behind the camera and he is heard mentioning Yakubu. There is more laughter after the photo is taken and Hajia Fawzia promises another visit, and they leave the office.
The Salis Video
The conversation in this video, also with an accompanying narrative suggesting that the President was Caught accepting a bribe on 30th of May 2017 to halt the dismissal of the Director of Urban Roads Alhaji Dr Tanko, is similar to that of the two earlier discussed with some very obvious manipulation. This one, however, came with a voice-over narrating to viewers the place and purpose of the meeting, and the sequence of events in the video.
Unlike the previously discussed videos, this one does not start with the two women. It starts with the gentleman in the black suit, identified by the narrator as Ambassador Adeji-Bawuah, in the middle of a sentence “…Her husband is the director of urban roads…”
Akufo-Addo: Oh, Transport Ministry?
Man in black suit: Yes, they are under Ministry of Transport
Akufo-Addo: Now they say they are called Highways
Man in black suit: That’s right. I think issues about civil servants are hard to discuss… man and Akufo-Addo laugh)
woman : We have been sending it, but we have realised that it doesn’t come
Akufo-Addo: Oh, I see. Okay…
This is followed by the voice of the narrator which tells viewers the meeting happened in the private residence of the President, Nima, and that the individuals had visited him to ‘plead clemency’ for the Director of Urban Roads.
The conversation continues in the same line as the two earlier transcribed videos until the woman asks her ‘brother’ who had led her to Akufo-Addo to brief him on the purpose of the meeting.
Invisible man: Yah, Nana, I think some time ago, Lt. Colonel Damoah met at Mama Busia’s house where I showed you some videos of how military people are trained…
Akufo-Addo: Yes, yes, yes (Akufo-Addo nods in confirmation)
The voice of the speaker (referred to here as invisible man as he cannot be seen in the video suddenly changes – so does the narrative in comparison with the earlier videos).
Invisible man: So your excellency, this morning we did not come with bad news, we are here because of Alhaji Abass’s issues. People are disturbing him – that he should be removed from office because he has been engaging in politics. But he has denied engaging in politics in office. He is a civil servant. He has never committed any offence there too but people just hate him and they say they will sack him from there. So he says we should come and plead with you on his behalf and to tell you the truth. He is on his knees pleading. The hatred they have for him, it will not be well if you don’t step in.
This is again followed by a narration to the effect a brown envelope containing an amount of $40,000 was then handed over to Akufo-Addo by the man on behalf of the Director of Urban Roads.
Invisible man: People claim they said he should give some money to them. He also says he does not have any money on him. All he can do is this $40,000 – we should bring it to you and that he is on his knees. He will not disgrace you if you give the position to him.
The narrator comes in again that Akufo-Addo asks for a name to which the woman gives the name FAWZIA.
Analysis of the videos
Dubawa ran a forensic search on the acclaimed video making rounds on social media with the ‘JT’ inscription and found it to be manipulated, whereas evidence from the supposed original video proves it to be otherwise.
The resolution of the video frames in the acclaimed video was deliberately altered to increase the noise on the video quality. Noise is a grainy veil in a photograph or video, obscuring details and making the contents appear significantly worse. Sometimes, photos or videos can be so noisy that they are essentially unusable.
However, in this case, the noise was implanted in the video to target more specifically the faces of the persons and the atmosphere of the events that went through the video. Clarity gives people a better understanding of the context and facial expressions of the persons involved. Thus in the video making rounds on social media, the noise was purposely increased to blur the atmosphere and to somehow give the unsuspecting viewer a general perception of the narrative the doctored video intends to share. That is, Akufo-Addo receiving bribes.
An analysis of the supposed doctored video using an open-source tool, Forensically, demonstrates the prior stated points.
Image 1: From the doctored video
In image 1 at the Magnification level 2 the face of the woman in the video cannot be seen clearly because of the noise infused. Facial expressions are important in such videos because it gives the viewer a general background of context. Here; it was intentionally blurred.
Image 2: From the supposed original video
At the same magnification level as image 1, image 2, taken from the original video shows a clearer face of the woman. This implies the absence of noise in Image 2 that was present in Image 1 (which was taken from the supposed doctored video.)
Also, videos that are deliberately doctored to be noisy are usually shared to capitalize on the viewers existing perception to believe a narrative without noticing the details, like actual conversation in such videos. For the audio, it was deliberately unaltered in the doctored video, since most of the communication was a dialectical Interswitch. Most Ghanaians may understand the actual context of the video in line with the language spoken, but others, especially those who don’t understand the local dialect, will be easily misled and will have to base their judgment on a noisy presented video that neither showed detailed facial expressions or a fairer atmosphere of the context.
Image 3: from the doctored video
Image 3, taken from the doctored video is analyzed on noise amplitude %100 and on the opacity level of %60, the results show a poor image quality as not even the pattern of the woman’s face is seen in the magnifier (the dark square).
Image 4:from the supposed original video clip
Image 4, taken from the original video clip and analyzed on the same noise amplitude of %100 and the opacity of %60 as of image 3. The result shows a converse outcome, while image 4 shows a pattern of the woman’s image 3 was completely blurred (noise).
Even though the timeline to the metadata of the doctored video could not be traced, shreds of evidence recovered using the forensically image magnifier showed the video was taken around 2016 before the presidential elections. This evidence is depicted below in image 5.
Image 5: from the supposed original video
Image 5, on the left, extracted at exactly 2:24 timing of the supposed original video depicts the T-shirt presented to Akufo-Addo with the inscription ‘Arise for Change 2016’ in his office. This inscription was part of his campaign signature in 2016 as seen in the other image on the right. This implies that the video was taken in 2016 before the elections. It also syncs with the dialogue (audio) suggesting that the T-shirts were presented for the Akufo-Addo 2016 campaign.
In further contentions that appeared on Twitter, some users have maintained that Akufo-Addo ‘took that bribe’ when he was President by juxtaposing a photo of Akufo-Addo with the former German Chancellor, Dr Angela Merkel seen in his office as shown in the video, to a news report by Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC). The first picture was from an updated news version on Ghana Broadcasting Corporation dated 2017; while the second picture was captured from the video in question. The user placed the photos to prove that Akufo-Addo was already President when the acclaimed video was made. However, the facts Dubawa uncovered disproves this claim.
Image: 6 Twitter disputant
First, the image the user shared was from anupdated version of a report on Ghana Broadcasting Web. Dubawa traced the actual report and confirmed it to be an updated news report that narrates Akufo- Addo’s visit to Europe in 2015 before he became president. The report was about his 2015 visit to Europe when he met with Angela Merkel, the then German Chancellor.
Image 7: From the original report on Ghana Broadcasting Corporation(GBC)
The above screenshots are from the 2015 report by the Ghana News Agency (GNA), that the user alleges to have occurred in 2017 while Akufo-Addo was President. The report introduced Akufo-Addo as the 2016 Presidential Candidate of the NPP on a 16-day Europe tour.
Furthermore, a TinEye Reverse Image and a Google Reverse Image search show that the photo of Akufo Addo and Angela Merkel being debated, first appeared online in 2012 during Akufo-Addo’s meeting with the former German Chancellor when Akufo-Addo was a 2012 presidential candidate. Other searches show that the photo was only used again in the GNA 2015 report during his visit again to Angela Merkel as a 2016 presidential candidate.
Image 8: taken from Akufo-Addo’s twitter handle posted in 2012
Post shows the original photo taken with a group during Akufo-Addo’s visit to German Chancellor in 2012
Image 9: from the supposed original video
The group photo taken in 2012 is also seen in the video next to the photo of Akufo-Addo and Angela Merkel
Image 10: From the original video
The narrative with the doctored video claims the footage was covered sometime in 2017 when Akufo-Addo was already President. The first image on the left was taken in Akufo-Addo’s office before presidency. It was captured moments after John Dramani Mahama, the former President of Ghana rang him to concede defeat. The news that presented the picture was captured on December 11, 2016. The second image captured at exactly 4:56 of the viral video timing also showed that the proceedings took place in the same office he was in before his presidency.
Hajia Fawzia, the woman who appeared in the video at Akufo Addo’s office has attested in a recent interview that the event took place before the election in 2016 where she donated GHS 40,000 and 1,000 T-shirts to Akufo-Addo, who was then a presidential candidate. She further explained that it was not a bribe but a campaign donation out of goodwill.
Conclusion
The viral video purporting that Pres Akufo-Addo was caught taking a USD40,000 bribe in 2017 in his capacity as president, in order not to sack Alhaji Abbas who is the director of Urban Roads is false.
Pieces of evidence reveal that the video in circulation is dated in 2016, it was doctored and does not reveal a bribe scandal. The original video reveals that it was a visit to Akufo-Addo by Hajia Fawzia, whose husband was indeed introduced as the director of Urban Roads. She was accompanied by two men on the visit to offer a sum of GHS 40,000 and 1,000 T-shirts with an inscription ‘Time for Change 2016’ as a gesture to help and support Akufo-Addo’s campaigns.
Also, in the video, Akufo-Addo does not prove to be the sitting President at the time, as he attributes the renaming of the Transport ministry to another government, and he is referred to as Nana, with no titles. This is further corroborated with shreds from the video that prove that he was not the sitting president at the time.
While Akufo-Addo only stated that the former president’s passing was due to a short illness, other reports are suggesting that the former president died from COVID-19. It is on this basis that information surfacing the media space state freely that the former president was seen at his mother’s funeral without observing COVID-19 protocols.
One of such claims accompanied by a video of Rawlings dancing has circulated on WhatsApp.
The Whatsapp message reads:
‘’Check out the above. Rawlings is seen above during his mother’s funeral with no mask and no social distancing. A week later was admitted for Covid-19 and now Requiem for him. Please don’t joke; observe all Covid 19 protocols. Stay alive!’’
Verification:
In the 35-second video that is associated with the claim, it is observed that Rawlings was wearing a black and white Achimota School print shirt together with his wife, Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings, and not a funeral cloth as expected.
Further checks show that the video was reported four years ago before the COVID-19 pandemic. In the news report dated 8 March 2016, it proves to be a video of Rawlings dancing Agbadza at Achimota School’s 1966/67 year group’s 50th anniversary celebration.
The claim that Rawlings was seen in a video during his mother’s funeral with no mask and no social distancing is false. The video associated with the claim is an old video from 2016 before the COVID-19 pandemic, where the late former president and his wife attended a 1966/67 Achimota School year group 50th anniversary event. The video has no link with Rawlings’ mother’s funeral which happened last month.
A Facebook user shared photos of murals he claimed are in Accra and attributed them to President Akufo-Addo’s daughter, Gyankroma Akufo-Addo in Accra, Ghana.
The murals are not from Accra, Ghana but Argentina. They were painted by an Argentine artist, Martin Ron
Full text
A Facebook user, posting with username Abubakar Baba Bawumia, on Thursday, November 12, 2020, uploaded photos of colourful paintings at an interchange.
He attributed the designs to President Akufo-Addo’s daughter, Gyankroma Akufo-Addo, and said the paintings were done in Accra.
“Nana Addo’s daughter, Gyankroma Akuffo Addo brightens up the city with fantastic works of art! This is Accra!,” the post caption reads.
Earlier this year, she, under the auspices of the Council facilitated the ‘Arts for All’ project which saw interchanges within Accra decorated with beautiful paintings.
Verification
A Google reverse image search matched the photos to ones shared on September 3, 2020, by an Argentine muralist, Ron Martin.
Additionally, a website for finding businesses and local places identified the painting as one done by Ron Martin.
In fact, some of the photos, such as this had his name, “Martin Ron” written on them.
Using local clues in Martin Ron’s post, we were able to find the exact location of his painting in Argentina on Google Maps. It is at Av. del Libertador – Vicente López, Provincia de Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Abundant evidence available shows that the photos shared by the Facebook user are not from Accra as he claims but rather Argentina. Also, the paintings are not in any way related to President Akufo-Addo’s daughter, Gyankroma. They are the works of 39-year-old Argentine street artist, Martin Ron.
Social media user shares evidence of Kwame Nkrumah awarding Nana Akufo-Addo with book and cash prizes after debate competition decades ago.
The young boy pictured with Nkrumah is 13-year-old George Miller who was at the time, the youngest student enrolled for the summer session at Columbia University.
Full text
An old photo purportedly showing Ghana’s first president, Kwame Nkrumah and incumbent president, Nana Akufo-Addo, together from many years ago is once again going viral on social media.
A Facebook user, John Kwadwo Stevens, recently shared the photo with the caption, “Dr. Kwame Nkrumah awarded young Akufo Addo with a book and Cash prize for excelling in a debate competition!”
It has since been shared more than 140 times.
The last time this photo went viral was in 2016 when President Akufo-Addo was campaigning to be president. A number of comments at the time flagged the photo as false even though it still continues to be believed by many to be the photograph of Nana Akufo-Addo in the photo.
Verification
Given that the photo’s purchasing license is owned by GettyImages, we accessed the photo on GettyImages’website to get further details.
Per the caption on the photo, the photo was taken at Moorseville, North Carolina in the US in 1960.
Beyond that detail, Getty Images did not state the identity of the little boy.
“Former president of Ghana Kwame Nkrumah and child, Moorseville, North Carolina, 1960,” the photo’s caption on the website has stated.
Nana Akufo-Addo, born in 1944, was 16 years old in 1960 and according to many biographies, was in Lancing College in the UK around that time.
A photo shared by the school and published on some Ghanaian news portals in 2018 including My News GH shows Akufo-Addo as a student there in 1960.
With the photos taken in the US while Nana Akufo-Addo was schooling in the UK, it was unlikely that he was the one in the photo.
After a series of advanced Google searches based on keywords from the caption shared by GettyImages, we found more information on the said young boy in the August 21, 1958 issue of Jet magazine hosted on Google Books.
Page 24 of the magazine captures the story of a young boy who was scheduled to meet Kwame Nkrumah.
The boy was named as 13-year-old George Miller who was the “youngest student enrolled in summer school at Columbia University in New York.”
He was “invited by Ghana’s Premier, Kwame Nkrumah, to attend the republic’s second-anniversary fete March 6.”
The photo accompanying the publication had some remarkable resemblance with the youngster who featured with Kwame Nkrumah in the iconic photo.
These include the glasses and his ears. Considering both images, it is very convincing that that youngster in the photo with Kwame Nkrumah was George Miller and not President Nana Akufo-Addo.
Besides this point, George Miller was from the same town in which the photo with Kwame Nkrumah was taken–Moorseville, North Carolina.
Conclusion
Based on the evidence presented above, we conclude that the boy who featured in the photo with Kwame Nkrumah was not Nana Akufo-Addo but very likely to be that of 13-year-old George Miller of Moorseville, North Carolina.
In the recently aired Alhaji and Alhaji political show on 12 September 2020, two invited panellists on the show, Kojo Twum Boafo and Kamal-Deen Abdulai, were heard debating a claim.
Boafo, who is the former CEO of Free Zones Authority and affiliated with the National Democratic Congress (NDC), was heard asserting that President Akufo-Addo promised to build 350 schools when he was a presidential candidate. Boafo was supported by another panellist, Gabriella Tetteh, a member of the NDC Communication Team, who was also heard claiming that this promise was stated in the New Patriotic Party’s (NPP) 2016 Manifesto.
However, both claims by Boafo and Tetteh were contested by Abdulai, the Deputy Director of Communications of the NPP, who indicated that Akufo-Addo made no such promises.
A transcription of the trilogue is captured below:
Boafo: “The president when he was a candidate said ‘Mahama said he’s built 200, I will build 350’ (translated from Twi) and today when you ask them where the 350 are, they tell you they painted classrooms”
Abdulai: “Kojo! Where?”
Tetteh: “Your 2016 manifesto said you were going to build 350 schools… You’ve forgotten?”
Abdulai: “Oh no no no no!”
Claim: Akufo-Addo, as a presidential candidate, said he will build 350 schools
Verdict: In 2012, Akufo-Addo, as the NPP presidential candidate, said in an address to UDS tertiary students association of the party in Navrongo that the first 18 months of the next NPP government would involve the building of 350 new Senior High Schools from scratch.
A 2-minute 23-second video news report published by the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) on 4 December 2012 confirms Boafo’s assertion as true.
In the video, Akufo-Addo, who was the NPP 2012 presidential candidate was heard making commitments of building a new society of job creation in his address to the NPP tertiary students association of the University for Development Studies (UDS) Navrongo campus.
“We plan a rapid and vigorous development of educational infrastructure in the first 18 months of the next NPP government. This would involve the building of 350 new senior high schools from scratch while rehabilitating and expanding existing ones,” Akufo-Addo said.
Again in 2016, a news report by JoyFM on 7 March 2016 shows that the former NPP Communications Director, Nana Akomea, mentioned that the NPP had a strategy to make this promise a reality.
“This whole idea of John Mahama saying I will build 200 schools was in reaction to Nana Addo’s plan to build 350-day schools as part of the free SHS agenda. So John Mahama also brought this thing that I am also going to build schools, it wasn’t part of their initial plan,” Nana Akomea said.
Claim: Akufo-Addo’s promise of building 350 schools is stated in the NPP 2016 manifesto
Verdict: There is no promise of the building of 350 newschools in the NPP 2016 manifesto nor in the NPP 2012 manifesto.
Contrary to Gabriella Tetteh’s claim that Akufo-Addo and the NPP’s promise of building new schools is stated in the NPP 2016 manifesto, there is no evidence of such promises by the NPP in the entire NPP 2016 Manifesto. There are no such promises found either under the infrastructure nor under education policies in the manifesto.
Furthermore, since Akufo-Addo mentioned this promise in 2012 in his address at UDS, one would assume that perhaps it might be stated in the NPP 2012 Manifesto; however, there is also no such promise stated in the entire NPP 2012 Manifesto.
Conclusion
The claim by both Boafo and Tetteh that Akufo-Addo promised to build 350 schools is true. Akufo Addo said this in 2012 as the NPP flagbearer while addressing the NPP tertiary students association at the UDS Navrongo campus. But there is no such promise stated in the 2016 NPP manifesto as Tetteh has claimed. It is also not found in the 2012 NPP manifesto.
A screenshot from the actual video where the claimant took the claim from – President Akufo-Addo holding a meeting with his campaign communication team
In image 1 at the Magnification level 2 the face of the woman in the video cannot be seen clearly because of the noise infused. Facial expressions are important in such videos because it gives the viewer a general background of context. Here; it was intentionally blurred.
