A private legal practitioner, Lawyer Kwame Abrefah, has called out investigative reporter Anas Aremeyaw Anas over his conduct during his most recent exposé, ‘The Galamsey Economy’.
In an opinion piece on the exposé, Lawyer Abrefah said Anas set out to unfairly smear the Vice President after failing to properly carry out checks to verify whether the claims of former Minister of State, Charles Adu Boahen on Bawumia’s supposed “appearance fees” were actually accurate before publishing his expose.
“…If Anas was indeed interested in objectivity and uncovering the truth, he would have provided the Vice President an opportunity to respond to Mr. Adu Boahen’s allegation on tape and then use the response to either challenge Mr. Adu Boahen or to impeach his credulity. The fact that Anas did not attempt to substantiate the allegations but decided to run with a series of vague, subjective and untested insinuations revealed his agenda: to mine a potential scandal and unfairly “smear” the Vice-President.” the lawyer wrote in his piece.
Titled “Anas: Manufacturing scandal at Vice President Bawumia’s expense”, the piece poked holes all over Anas’ motives for the recent piece, particularly in regards to his unfounded allegations against Vice President, Dr Bawumia, whose credibility multiple sources have vouched for.
“The Anas video made an implicit yet unmistakable statement: the Vice President is culpable by the mere mention of his name in the video by a former Minister of State who had fallen victim of Anas’ entrapment and underhanded investigative methods. Anas speculated, without providing any evidence, that Mr. Adu Boahen’s hearsay statement about his connection with the Vice President should be deemed as credible evidence undermining the Vice President’s integrity,” the article began.
“Social media and opposition politicians quickly spread this exaggerated and unfounded claim by Anas to demonize the Vice President and deliberately tarnish his image. Within 24 hours, the Vice President released a statement and publicly asked the President to fire Mr. Adu Boahen, which was unprecedented in the history of this country.
“In my view, if the video was authentic, it revealed that Mr. Adu Boahen was either eager to use the Vice President’s name to extract some personal benefit or desperate to induce the fake investor to commit.
“In his quest to create a sensational story, and garner media attention, Anas deliberately kept the Vice President’s name in the tape. He showed a careless disregard for the reputational harm to the Vice President, never mind the damage to his own credibility and journalistic integrity, or his responsibility to avoid salacious speculation devoid of any substantiation whatsoever.” it continued.
The lawyer said Anas should have dug into the allegations against Bawumia rather than making hay out of it in its publication prior to releasing the documentary.
In his opinion, this proves Anas had malevolent intentions towards the Vice President, even at the expense of his own reputation
“…If Anas was indeed interested in objectivity and uncovering the truth, he would have provided the Vice President an opportunity to respond to Mr. Adu Boahen’s allegation on tape and then use the response to either challenge Mr. Adu Boahen or to impeach his credulity. The fact that Anas did not attempt to substantiate the allegations but decided to run with a series of vague, subjective and untested insinuations revealed his agenda: to mine a potential scandal and unfairly “smear” the Vice-President. Anas’ investigative findings were incomplete, to say the least, as he obviously entrapped Mr. Adu Boahen, and linked the Vice-President’s name to the scandal that he (Anas) engineered,”
The Canada-based Ghanaian lawyer further went on to touch on Vice President Bawumia’s incorruptibility, vouching for his reputation and maintaining he does not see any circumstance under which he would engage in the conduct alleged in the video.
“I have been exposed to a lot of great leaders throughout my career, some good and some bad. Whether it was during my time in the public service or my experience in the private sector, great leaders I have come to admire and respect always share common qualities: humility, integrity, respect, tolerance, and empathy.
“The Vice President has not only consistently demonstrated these qualities but has maintained the high level of integrity expected of the office he occupies. Hence, Anas and his team should have exercised the common decency and responsibility to ascertain the veracity of Mr. Adu Boahen’s insinuations rather than putting vague and unsubstantiated information in the public domain.
“Certainly, we are all human, and therefore imperfect and vulnerable in our own unique ways. Thus, I do not in any way suggest that the Vice President is beyond criticism. Nonetheless, this was not criticism, but rather a transparent attempt to link the Vice-President to an engineered scandal, with no basis in truth or facts,”
Ahenkan added: “The Vice President is campaigning to become the flagbearer of his party. Hence, in the eyes of skeptical public, Anas’ video seemed like the work of a political activist determined to tarnish the Vice President’s image ahead of the presidential primary.
“If Annas and his team hope to help to combat corruption effectively and address the crisis of impunity in our country, they must break the log jam of demonization. Indeed, corruption is cancer destroying our nation. However, by entrapping people and engineering scandal, the media participates in corruption and loses sight of its truth-seeking mission.
“Rather than manufacturing scandals, I respectfully urge Anas and the media to focus their investigations on exposing systemic, legislative and administrative weaknesses that enables people who are entrusted with power use to exploit, plunder and steal from the poorest of the poor in our country.”
Source: theGhanaianVoice.Com