On May 16, four supporters of Ghana’s ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) assaulted Dokurugu Abubakar Ndeeya, a reporter with the privately owned Zaa Multimedia, while he was filming outside a meeting between Vice-President Mahamudu Bawumia and party leaders in the northern Tamale region, the journalist told CPJ and media reports said.
Ndeeya told CPJ he was filming several NPP supporters arguing with a police officer when he noticed one of the supporters pointing at him. The journalist stopped filming out of fear, but four of the supporters, one of whom had an NPP-branded handkerchief tied around his head, approached the journalist and began punching and kicking him all over his body, according to Ndeeya and and video of the attack reviewed by CPJ.
Ndeeya said that another NPP supporter intervened after about two minutes, by pulling Ndeeya away, identifying him as a journalist, and pleading with the assailants to stop. He took Ndeeya to a nearby military van to wait as he retrieved the journalist’s phone.
Before returning the phone to Ndeeya, the man checked to ensure that all of that day’s footage had been deleted. The journalist told CPJ he was not sure when the footage was deleted but he believed that his assailants were responsible. Ndeeya said he sustained cuts around his mouth and pain in his knee and a tooth, and visited a local hospital where he was given medication.
Ndeeya and Ibrahim Angaangmeni Alhassan, chief editor of Zaa Multimedia, said their office reported the attack to the police, who arrested one suspect and later released him on bail, and investigations were ongoing.
Bawumia is the NPP’s presidential candidate in Ghana’s upcoming December elections, when he hopes to win a third term for the party against the opposition’s John Mahama, who served as president from 2012 to 2017.
Akbar Yussif Rohullah Khomeini, NPP spokesperson and special aide to Bawumia, told CPJ via messaging app that he was aware that NPP supporters had attacked the journalist, but the incident had nothing to do with the party’s meeting.
CPJ also requested comment from the NPP’s northern region spokesperson Yussif Danjuma via phone and messaging app, and from police spokesperson Grace Ansah-Akrofi via phone and text message but received no replies.
