Minister’s resignation: investigative journalist threatened with shooting, burning

Investigative journalist Edward Adeti has been threatened with death threats. The Bolgatanga-based journalist, who recently joined The Fourth Estate, received the death threat when a Facebook post about his move was published.

“This is the worst I have received so far. The faceless texter or texters telling me that I will be shot and burnt as it happened to some police officers in Bolgatanga [Upper East regional capital]. When things like this happen. I quickly think of my family,” he said of his fears.

The text message to The Fourth Estate journalist read:

The Maltaaba Bank is in reference to The Fourth Estate’s expose on illegal deals between officials of the Maltaaba Community Bank and the Bongo District Assembly.

Adeti has received similar threats in the past. In May 2019, the journalist reported a series of death threats to the Bureau of National Investigations after his investigative work forced Rockson Bukari, a Minister of State, to resign on April 29, 2019.

Adeti had recorded the minister allegedly trying to bribe him to drop an investigative story.

The investigative story produced in 2018 exposed a compromising relationship between a Chinese mining firm and a judge handling a case involving that firm. The judge at the centre of the scandal, Justice Jacob Boon, eventually recused himself when the case was brought before him at the Bolgatanga High Court Room One on December 17, 2018.

Adeti recalled that one Mubarak, a resident in the Upper East Region, went on Facebook and wrote similar threats that “ I was a fool and would live to regret this.”

He said, since then, the intimidation had been far and in between until last Friday when he received the latest threats.

The Fourth Estate’s checks show that the number is registered in the name of Awine Atiah.

Adeti said he suspected that the person who sent the message was probably working with others because of the word “we” used in the text message he received at 4:52 am.

After his resignation, Mr. Bukari was never put to court after the incident.

Adeti, therefore, wondered how a court could exonerate him and added that the latest threat was based on what he described as a false publication on Dreamzfmonline that endangered his life and that of his family.

He has since reported the matter to the police who have invited the management of Dreamz FM for a meeting on Wednesday, December 22, 2021.

For many investigative journalists in Ghana, the brutal killing of investigative journalist Ahmed Suale on January 16, 2019, is a constant reminder that they are endangered.