Claim: An X user, @KokuAnyidoho, shares a fact card alleging that former president and flag bearer of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), John Dramani Mahama, says the New Patriotic Party (NPP) has placed Ghanaians under an Indian Spell.
Verdict: False. DUBAWA’s findings reveal that John Mahama has not made any such comments attributed to him.
Full Text
An X user, @KokuAnyidoho, shared a fact card alleging that former president John Mahama has said that the NPP has placed an Indian spell on Ghanaians.
The post was captioned: “Is this where the matter has descended to? What happened to the October 1st prophecy?”
The fact card posted on X
“You woke up on Sunday morning and decided to post falsehoods and then go to church to ‘praise God?’ You are indeed a very stupid man,” an X user @u4know_1 commented.
As of Oct. 14, 2024, the post had garnered 40,000 views, 51 reposts, 11 quotes, 400 likes, and 17 bookmarks.
DUBAWA investigated this claim to fight misinformation and disinformation ahead of elections.
Verification
We conducted a keyword search to determine whether there had been any publication on the issue. Findings revealed that no major media outlet had a news report on the claim when compiling this report.
However, the researcher found a short Facebook reel video by Nana Kwadwo Baffour. The video was an excerpt from an interview with John Mahama that was granted on KofiTV and TV Africa. Find the full interview here, as posted on Kofi TV’s YouTube page on Dec. 6, 2020. In hours to the 2020 election interview, the former president reiterated that he had undertaken several infrastructural projects, but Ghanaians ignored it for various reasons. Find his statements from 32:05 to 35:06 of the interview.
“I will say it was physical and spiritual. Physically, there was a lot of propaganda from the NPP at that time……….. Then, on the spiritual, sometimes things happen so much that people are blindfolded to the extent that nothing pleases them, so I believe some events happened. I commissioned the Accra Digital Centre to provide media coverage of the ceremony. However, you did not hear about it or see it because you were blindfolded and unable to see,” the former president said in Twi during the interview.
Further, critical analysis of the entire video reveals that he did not blame the NPP for the spiritual “blindfold.” Also, there was no mention of “Indian spell” in the entire interview.
Also, DUBAWA observed that the fact card had the logos of Ultimate FM 106.9, Abusua FM 96.5, and other affiliate stations under the EIB Network. However, the researcher did not find this fact card on EIB Network’s social media handles.
Further, DUBAWA contacted Isaac Justice Bediako, senior journalist and Ultimate and Abusua FM newsroom member, who confirmed that the fact card did not emanate from them.
Conclusion
The claim that John Mahama says the NPP has placed an Indian spell on Ghanaians is false.