Fatimatu Abubakar, Minister for Information, has urged professionalism as journalists prepare to cover the 2024 Presidential and Parliamentary elections on Saturday, December 7.
Speaking to Ghana News Agency ahead of the major polls, she urged media practitioners to refrain from perpetuating falsehood or inciting violence through inaccurate reportage and fake news.
She noted that ensuring a peaceful election and sustaining the country's democracy was a collective responsibility, and the media must play its part without sensationalism. "The [reports] should not be based on inducement or anything…or inserting yourself because of your personal, political, parochial interests and saying because this is where I think the election should go, let me incite, let me embellish, let me lie…," she explained. "We should also not perpetrate falsehood so that the stories will be sweeter for our political party and sour for the other political party….That, we should not do!" she emphasised.
Ms Abubakar also called on politicians to mind their utterances and "do what is expected of them legally" during the electoral process. "For us politicians, I think it's only about the quality of your argument and not to go and insult somebody, to incite violence or anything of that sort…I won't do it, and I can't tell anybody to do it…Yours is to make sure your agents are vigilant, and they are policing the process…" she added.
