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• Journalist who recorded the assault of civilians by military personnel in Wa has had to move to protect his family
• The journalist said in order not to be targeted he has had to relocate his wife and children
• Some residents of Wa were subjected to beatings by aggrieved military men whose colleague’s phone had been stolen
A journalist (name withheld) who recorded a viral broad daylight assault by some military men on citizens in Wa, capital of the Upper West region; has spoken exclusively to GhanaWeb.
According to him, he is currently laying low as a precautionary measure seeing that Wa is a small place adding that he has since moved his family – wife and children – out of the region, for safety reasons.
He is, however, convinced that recording the incident was the right thing to do and putting it out was even more important to highlight the case of persons expected to secure citizens, rather unleashing harm.
“I have no regrets, currently as I am speaking, if anything should happen to me in the course of this, I will be grateful to God because once the soldiers or security personnel are asked to protect us, they should do the job.
“And currently as I am speaking to you, the reason why they were brutalizing the people, if you look at the reason, it is something that logically, it doesn’t sound.
“A mobile phone was snatched from your colleague and you couldn’t identify the person as a trained soldier but rather you went to mobilize your colleagues from the barracks,” he stated.
He wondered how they put so much effort in coming all the way from the barracks to assault people who they could not tell had something to do with the phone snatching.
“Barracks to town is not easy (it is far); so they started from the barracks beating people, anybody they met. In the course, a pregnant woman was affected, the PRO to the RCC (Regional Coordinating Council) was also affected and so many people,” he stressed.
He spoke about another victim who was in pain after the impact of the assault left him with a broken leg.
He further clarified that keeping a low profile had to do with the fact that he spoke the local language in the video, and also because a number of people had called to commend him for the video and the impact that it was generating.
He remains seized with developments on the subject – from the military command’s meeting with the overlord of the area and demands being made subsequently.
“The communiqué that came this morning said anyone who has been brutalized yesterday should go to the police to make some complaints about it,” he said.
“Currently, they (the military) came to grant an apology and the overlord also said they have accepted the apology so they are going to bring out a communiqué from the overlord to the media.
“So I think for now, what people are doing is, if the overlord should accept the apology, what they want from the overlord is that he should make sure that those people who are affected are compensated,” he explained.
The journalist is a member of the Ghana Fact-Checking Network – a group of over 100 fact-checkers drawn from 35 media organizations working to tackle misinformation on social and traditional media.
The Ghana Armed Forces, GAF, has in a statement stressed that it will swiftly deal with all soldiers who took part in the assault.
