General News of Tuesday, 12 March 2019
Source: mynewsgh.com
2019-03-12
President Akufo-Addo
President Akufo-Addo’s government cannot deny that fact it was unaware pro-New Patriotic Party (NPP) vigilante group; De-Eye Group was receiving some form of illegal military training at the Osu Castle, according to Joy Fm’s investigative Journalist Manasseh Azure Awuni, MyNewsGh.com reports.
Despite the President’s rhetoric on peace and security, Joy News investigations have found, his former personal bodyguard leads a pro-government militia group, De-Eye Group
“It will be extremely shocking and unbelievable the office of the President will say it does not know the existence of the militant group at the Osu Castle”, the journalist said on Nhyira FM morning show monitored by MyNewsGh.com.
The Joy News exposé done by award-winning journalist, Manasseh Azure Awuni, showed that a group has been using the Osu Castle a ‘security zone’ for training since the Akufo-Addo government was sworn in.
The group which is said to be led by Choman, a former personal bodyguard of President Nana Akufo-Addo and was described in 2012 as a “vigilante group” in a pro-government newspaper Daily Guide and affiliated to the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP).
Responding to the documentary, Information Minister Kojo Oppong Nkrumah said in a press statement on Friday, 8 March 2019 that the documentary is a “malicious” misrepresentation of facts and lack evidence to support the narrative that President Nana Akufo-Addo and the NPP are sponsoring a militia group.
In the five paged statement, government refuted claims that ‘De-Eye’ is a militia group being sponsored and trained by the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) at the Osu Castle.
It described the investigative piece as one that falls short of the journalism standards and it only puts together conjuncture, malice, mischief, sensationalism and invalidated suspicions, presented to the Ghanaian people as truth.
However, Manasseh Azure reacting to the government’s position in a Facebook comment under a published post by Felix Kwakye Ofosu, a former Deputy Information Minister said, the government hasn’t mastered in lying. The comment reads “Now the[y] claim the group was cleared in October 2018. But we filmed them from the Castle to the Conference Centre on December 7, 2018, for the Dombo event and after that, we had different films. They don’t know how to lie.”
