#FixTheCountry To Hit The Streets Against Brutal Attacks On Journalists

The now-popular organic youth movement called #FixTheCountry has scheduled May 22, 2021, as a “March With Caleb” street protest to picket against the brutal attacks and torture of Ghanaians journalists by the security agencies in the country.

The protest by the youth movement is inspired by the latest brutality meted out to Caleb Kudah, the Accra-based CITI FM presenter who was ruthlessly tortured by operatives of the National Security Agency.

In his narration which has been corroborated by his boss, Samuel Atta-Mensah and a medical report, Caleb Kudah said he was punched, slapped and kicked in the groin by operatives, including the Director of Operations of the National Security, Lt. Col Agyemang when they found out that he had surreptitiously sneaked into their premises to take pictures and videos intended to expose a deep cover-up by the Microfinance and Small Loans Centre (MASLOC) of dozens of brand new cars bought with state resources and abandoned to rot away at premises of the National Security.

The Fix The Country Movement says it had read “…with utter disgust the horrifying details of the torture of Caleb Kudah, a Journalist with Citi Media, by members of our Republic’s national security apparatus. As we all know, Caleb’s experience is not new; many other journalists have suffered the same fate. Several people have continued to sound the alarm bells about an entrenched culture of Impunity, State-Sponsored Violence and Indifference.”

The group charged that “This cannot be our reality forever as Ghanaian citizens. At some point, our democracy must deliver on its promises. State-sponsored tyranny cannot be accepted as the default reality of the Ghanaian Experience.”

It is based on this conviction that the group has decided to stage a second street protest this month, May, to “have the Conversation differently, by taking our case to the Streets…to reclaim our rights as citizens.”

The group cited over 38 cases of torture, attacks and hounding of journalists by security agents since 2015. The attacks on journalists in their line of duty include the assassination of Ahmed Hussein Suale who was shot at close range by assassins after the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Member of Parliament for Assin Central, Kennedy Agyapong had put a bounty on his head.

Suale was an undercover journalist who was investigating a multi-million-dollar bribery scandal involving the Jubilee House. The undercover piece captured in the Number 12 documentary revealed that the disgraced former President of the Ghana Football Association, Kwasi Nyantakyi has hinted at a US$5million bribed destined for President Akufo Addo, Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia and some ministers. 

The group also cited the gunpoint arrest on April 1, 2021, of Whatsup News Editor-in-Chieh, David Tamakloe, who was investigating a sensitive national interest story. 

“When on April 1, 2021, four police officers in plainclothes arrested David Tamakloe, editor-in-chief of the privately-owned Whatsup News website, and detained him for about 24 hours at the city’s National Police Headquarters, seized his two phones and mobile hotspot, we issued Press Statements and went on with our lives,” the group stated in their release and added that the youth of Ghana will not continue to overlook such blatant abuse of state power.

They also cited over two dozen extra-judicial killings and prosecution of perceived criminals by the security agencies within the same period.

Meanwhile, the nebulous nature of the powerful youth movement has sent shivers through the corridors of power, as an earlier demonstration by the group this month was clandestinely suppressed by the Ghana Police Service. But the angry youth went ahead to the biggest online protest in Ghana and one of the biggest in Africa.

The youth group made up of a voluntary collation of people from all walks of life that are aggrieved with the messy socio-political situation in the country, have vowed not to relent in their plans to stage sustained protests to have the mess in the country fixed.