Journalist Fired For Taking On Okudzeto, Agyenim Boateng

A senior investigative journalist at The Informer, a pro-government newspaper has been fired because of pressure from high levels of government over certain provocative commentaries on the work of the information management team, our sources have hinted us.

Justice Annan was dismissed from the newspaper somewhere last week due to his opinions he shared on certain radio networks in the capital.

According to our information, his loudmouthed lashing of the government information team nearly landed him with a beaten by one of the Deputy Ministers of Information who drove to a radio station where he was on air as a panelist. Justice who shot to fame in the Amal Bank saga has become too big for the newspaper to handle and his constant attacks on the government especially its managers of information forced management's decision to boot him out because of fear of loosing the freebies.

In an interview with Justice yesterday, he said, his predicament started when he started making commentaries on the airwaves to the effect that the government’s information management team was very weak and leaky.

He said he still stands by word and the President's own admission of having a problem in that area shows how vindicated he is and wonders why the government that his former his employer seeks to help will mount pressure for his dismissal.

He said that the two Deputy Ministers at the Information Ministry also called him and one of them, a trained journalist at that even threatened him on the phone.

According to him on Thursday at the Studios of Radio Gold, one of the Deputy Ministers walked into the studio which happens to be his former place of work and 'stood for almost 10 minutes staring at me and he left'.

"He called me on Friday and told me he came to the studio purposely because of me and that if I had said any of the things I say on the other networks he was going to face me squarely in the studio but he could see I am a coward so I could not repeat the very things I say elsewhere", he noted.

"I was very shocked and asked myself since when has a Deputy Minister of Information walked into a radio station with the intention of beating up a journalist for just speaking his mind?" Justice wondered.

"This also goes to show that the National Democratic Congress (NDC) does not stand for the truth and prefer those who would rather sing their praises even when all can see things for ourselves," he stated.

Citing an example, he said that the recent hue and cry over the government’s attempt to purchase 4 C27J Spartan Jets clearly demonstrates the flop in the communication sector of the government.  He said the denials from the Presidential Spokesperson, Mahama Ayariga, the Minister of Information and her Deputy, Zita Okaikwei and Samuel Okudzeto only makes matters worse for government until the intervention of the Defence Minister.

In the said case, Samuel Okudzeto told Oman FM that he had conducted checks at the ‘very highest levels’ at the Presidency, and that there was no truth in the allegation and that government had no intention of acquiring jets from America.

A short while later, however, his boss, Zita Okaikwei, was contradicting him, saying on Radio Gold also in Accra that the whole concept was at the discussion stage by the Armed Forces Council and that it was yet to reach Cabinet level. Presidential Spokesperson Mahama Ayariga virtually went into the lecture hall of the Ghana Institute of Journalism lecturing the editors and reporters of the two newspapers that carried the story.