Stan Dogbe Was Never Arrested for Mauling the GBC Reporter

Stan Dogbe

New Yorkers have a saying that goes as follows: “Whatever goes around comes around,” eventually, that is. And on the latter count, I am referring to the alleged physical assault of Mr. Samuel Gyamfi, aka Sammy Gyamfi, the Communications Director of the country’s main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), by Mr. Henry Nana Boakye, the National Youth Organizer of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) – (See “NDC Rejects Nana B’s Apology” Modernghana.com 2/3/19). There is absolutely no justification, whatsoever, for physical assault, especially in the high-tension terrain of political debates and arguments. Even so, this violent incident eerily recalls that period, in the wake of the vehicular death of Mr. Samuel Nuamah, then a Flagstaff House-attached Ghanaian Times reporter, on the Ho-Accra road.

Mr. Nuamah, it may be recalled, was one of a group of over a dozen media operatives who had been driven in a convoy that accompanied then-President John Dramani Mahama to an event organized by the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Ghana. That accident was widely attributed to the routinely short-shrift treatment meted the country’s journalists and reporters by the Mahama Flagstaff House. In this particular instance, we are told that the vehicle in which some 15 to 20 Flagstaff House-attached correspondents and reporters traveled to Ho, the Volta Regional Capital, had been abruptly commandeered by some Mahama political operatives on their return trip. The reporters had been offloaded onto a barely roadworthy minivan driven by a commercial driver who was widely described as very young and extremely inexperienced. The vehicle would, not surprisingly, end up in a ravine, almost instantly killing Mr. Nuamah.

Where this column comes in has to do with the attempt by a professionally curious – and some would say, even inquisitive – young broadcast journalist on staff at the nation’s largest state-owned broadcaster, namely, the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC), who had attempted to eavesdrop on a conversation between then Presidential Staffer, Mr. Stanislav X. Dogbe, and Mahama Communications Minister, Dr. Edward Omane-Boamah. This incident took place at the 37^th Military Hospital, where several of the victims of the accident which, as has already been mentioned, cost the life of Mr. Nuamah, had been sent for treatment. Reliable reports had it that an angry Mr. Dogbe had mercilessly and savagely thrashed the young GBC radio reporter who had to be treated at the same hospital. The young reporter’s broadcast equipment, in particular a digital audio-recorder, would be totally wrecked, smashed to smithereens, as it were, in the brutal beating process.

The equipment would be replaced by Mr. Julius Debrah, the then strategically appointed Mahama Chief of Staff. As is characteristic of the movers-and-shakers of the National Democratic Congress, the victim would not be compensated, not at least to the best of public knowledge. Now, this is rather bizarre for a president who had been touted as an expert and savvy communications operative. Except for Chairman Jerry John Rawlings, Mr. Mahama may very well have the most abysmal record for the gross mistreatment of Ghanaian journalists in the Fourth Republic. In short, what I am driving at here is that in the aforementioned incident, absolutely no apologies of moment had been released or issued by Mr. Mahama’s Chief of Staff, except to flippantly inform the general public that the cedi-sum value of the state-owned audio-recording equipment of the brutalized GBC reporter had been settled.

It is primarily for the foregoing reason why I am quite a bit amused to learn that some NDC party stalwarts have flatly rejected the apology of Mr. Boakye, the New Patriotic Party’s National Youth Organizer, in the wake of the latter’s alleged fisticuffs with the NDC’s Communications Director at a radio station. We must also pointedly highlight the fact that Mr. Gyamfi is notoriously rude and has come up for severe public carping by some leading operatives of his own party. And so other than cheaply seeking to make massive political capital out of a sound beating that the NDC’s Communications Director probably deserved, this is decidedly a patent nonissue. Nana Boakye, aka Nana B, says that he was involuntarily forced to rough up Mr. Gyamfi because the latter had unwisely and provocatively sought to rudely dishonor both the person and office of President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.

If, indeed, Mr. Gyamfi had clearly, deliberately and maliciously sought to defame both Nana Akufo-Addo and Mr. Boakye, then there is not much that the police can do about this quite regrettable incident, short of taking statements from both major party stalwarts. Mr. Gyamfi’s best bet is to sue Nana Boakye for a flagrant breach of his free-speech and civil rights. And then, of course, Nana Boakye could also countersue Mr. Gyamfi for defamation of character. As I have already observed, his uncouth manners and poor public reputation, both within his own party, the National Democratic Congress, and the country at large, is very unlikely to enhance the case of Mr. Gyamfi. Nana Boakye may inescapably be at fault, but the significantly flawed character profile and severely blighted public reputation of Mr. Gyamfi may very well prove to be a mitigating factor in Nana Boakye’s defense or favor.

At any rate, the NDC operatives are not known to have much respect or use for personnel of the Ghana Police Service. They would be better off having Mr. Anas Aremeyaw Anas’ Tiger-Eye PI team of investigators do their dirty work for them, in much the same manner that then-President Mahama did with those circuit and superior court judges.

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By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD
English Department, SUNY-Nassau
Garden City, New York
February 3, 2019
E-mail: [email protected]