The Upper East Regional Chairman of BONABOTO, Francis Atintono, has visited a physical attack on Starr News’s correspondent, Edward Adeti, following his investigations into the whereabouts of some five vehicles alleged to have gone missing at the Upper East Regional Health Directorate.

Stanley Akamiri Abopaam, public relations officer for the organisation, is believed to have fuelled the assault by circulating an audio clip which Mr. Atintono strongly claimed was being distributed by Mr. Adeti.

The reporter, who has come under ceaseless verbal attacks from some people uncomfortable with the evidence-backed findings made since the report was released last Sunday, refuted the chairman’s claims that he had dispersed the audio. He maintained that it was done by Mr. Abopaam, but Mr. Atintono, burning with rage, would have none of that.

The tape has the voice of Mr. Adeti telling one Sydney Ageyomah Abilba, a messenger from an embattled Upper East Regional Director of Health Services, Dr. Kofi Issah, that his boss needed to “be careful with” some members of BONABOTO as their position on the vehicle disappearance controversy perilously seemed to be worsening matters for him with his superiors at the headquarters. The caution, mentioned in a private chat, was in connection with the public announcement the director had made in August, 2016, that five official vehicles? a car, a Mitsubishi Pajero, a V8 and 2 pickups? had vanished from the directorate’s pool.

He also said some members of the organisation were opposed to the manner in which both their comrades and Dr. Issah himself were handling the “missing vehicles” claims. He mentioned one of Ghana's most celebrated retired educationists, Robert Ajene, and the headmaster of the Bongo Senior High School, Peter Azitari Gaaga. That was after the two men had been reported to have, together with some members, distanced themselves from the vehicle-related row.

The attack took place in an office room used by Starr News in the regional capital, Bolgatanga. Both Mr. Ajene and Mr. Gaaga only came to the office to make an affirmation in the presence of Mr. Atintono that they had never told the reporter their position on the controversy. Mr. Adeti confirmed that he, too, had never met with any of the two men to discuss the Ghana Health Service vehicles controversy, saying “that is why your names were neither contained in the investigative report nor mentioned on air” but he maintained that credible sources had revealed their position to him.

The two elderly men looked satisfied with the explanation the journalist gave. But the fuming chairman repeatedly pressed the correspondent to disclose his sources, rising from his chair several times as if to hit him or to walk out on the meeting. Looking unperturbed, the reporter said he was more prepared to go to jail than to reveal his sources.

He stated that the correspondent had deliberately recorded his own chat with Dr. Issah’s messenger and sent the material out to the public to portray a divided BONABOTO. And he became even more furious when Edward echoed what was already captured in the tape? that the health regional director should be careful with some members of the group on the “missing cars” claims.

He sprang to his feet, ran riot to where the reporter sat and thrust him hard in the head with his right hand as he also spewed venoms at him.

“You are just a terrible character! He’s a stupid guy! How can you say this? What nonsense is this? You are just a fool! If you say that, you are a fool. Going to someone’s house to take shots of a car, is that journalism? It is you who is sending a tape round to say that BONABOTO is divided,” he charged as Mr. Ajene and Mr. Gaaga restrained him.

PRO caught pants down

Mr. Atintono’s strong assertion that the audio tape was deliberately being circulated by the reporter to portray BONABOTO as a union divided on the issue of the alleged missing vehicles at the health directorate showed that the one behind the distribution of the material- Mr. Abopaam- had kept his harmful action secret from his own group and, perhaps, the public as well.

It was the same falsehood members of the group including Mr. Ajene and Mr. Gaaga as well as the public had been made to believe.

But a few days before Mr. Atintono’s physical assault, the reporter had gotten enough evidence to prove that Mr. Abopaam, the organisation’s mouthpiece, was the source of the audio tape distribution.

The journalist had acquired and registered a new whatsapp contact and had connected with Mr. Abopaam through his line. He had introduced himself as a native of Bolgatanga but resident and working in Accra as a paralegal staff at a non-existent chamber.

He had used the face of a Jamaican for his profile picture and would occasionally speak Gurune (the indigenous tongue in Bolgatanga) to fully trap the PRO into thinking that he was dealing with somebody he should trust.

The correspondent, whilst chatting with Mr. Abopaam, had also trickily condemned his own investigative report and suggested how the PRO could plant a woman around the reporter to seduce and to induce him to reveal his sources. And Mr. Abopaam had readily welcomed the idea.

The ploy was also being used to gather intelligence following some verbal threats the journalist had received from some unidentified young men on his way home two days after his report on the missing vehicles had come out. He had also informed the police that he had consciously set a trap on himself to gather some intelligence and had given the law-enforcement agency random feedbacks. As the warm communication went on for days, Mr. Abopaam, without being asked, gave the reporter the same audio tape (which Mr. Atintono was accusing Mr. Adeti of distributing) and said: “This is him (Mr. Adeti) with one of us (Sydney Abilba)”.

Until Stanley loosely mentioned this to his trusted 'faceless brother', it was unknown that Sydney, Dr. Issah's agent, secretly belonged to a gang involving Mr. Abopaam.

The sharing of the sound tape and the message that accompanied it had perfectly concluded the intelligence gathering long before the meeting and the assault took place. To quell Mr. Atintono’s accusation, the reporter showed the whatsapp chat page to everyone in the meeting and took them through Mr. Abopaam’s profile to see his contact (which Mr. Atintono was expected to also have on his phone) to confirm that the sole distributor of the audio material had been Mr. Abopaam.

The meeting, rendered tense throughout by Mr. Atintono’s rage, came to a close after Samuel Mbura, a morning show host at Tanga Radio, a private media outlet in the regional capital, who reportedly got the tape first, also confirmed on a telephone loudspeaker that Mr. Abopaam was the source of the audio material in his possession. Mr. Ajene and Mr. Gaaga left the office vindicated, speechless, visibly shocked at the revelations and convinced that Sydney had done the amateur recording and that Mr. Abopaam had been the faceless source of its circulation.

The position of Ajene, a colossus, on the “missing” vehicles

It was expected that the PRO was going to finally realise it after the meeting, that he had been in a warm private whatsapp company with the least expected person- the same reporter he had strongly vilified in public over his investigative report. Soon after the three men had left the office block, Mr. Abopaam, who had vowed everywhere to cut the journalist down to size after his findings on the "missing" cars had been published, softened his stance, knowing he had been exposed.

He sent a sober whatsapp message to the journalist, saying: “We may have differences but it does not constitute enmity.

Note that very very well, my brother.” Then, he attached three thank-you emoticons to a message highly unexpected to ever come from his end.

The motive behind Mr. Abopaam’s action leaves a lot of questions hanging in the air. Starr News tried in vain to tease out the purpose from him.

But whilst it is clear that he has been caught pants down, he also appears to have fallen on his own dagger because the same tape he circulated deliberately to court hate and attack for the journalist from members of BONABOTO everywhere and to trigger a wave of ill will from the public targeted at the reporter's credibility is rather what the highly incensed regional chairman says is giving BONABOTO a rotten image everywhere as a sharply divided union as the tape spreads further.

In other words, Mr. Abopaam, in what could be a revenge mission related to the investigation that countered 'their' cause and at the same time a desperate attempt to paint the reporter as one mainly seeking to destroy BONABOTO by his candid remarks in the tape, has been unmasked as ironically "blackmailing" his own organisation by suicidally distributing the tape himself.

And it may now interest the public to learn that when Mr. Adeti discreetly asked Mr. Ajene, a person of high influence within BONABOTO and first principal of the Bolgatanga Polytechnic, in the meeting what would be his reply if a media house ever asked him of his position on BONABOTO’s involvement in the development about the "missing" vehicles at the directorate, his reply pointed at what the reporter had firmly alluded to in the tape- that some members of the organisation are not in support of the involvement of their colleagues in the “missing” cars rumpus.

“I would say I don’t know anything about it. I would say I have overheard of the missing cars but I don’t know the details. I wouldn’t say yes or no,” Mr. Ajene 'confirmed' strongly, spreading both hands in the air. There was a strong look of displeasure on Mr. Atintono's flaming face.

The public embarrassment

Residents, who have sighted screenshots of the chats, copies of which are also with the police, have described Mr. Abopaam as a “complete ridicule” of a public relations officer who should not be trusted with any public office anywhere.

“With these screenshots I've seen so far, people do not need further evidence to be careful with Abopaam. And by describing Sydney as one of them, he has exposed the regional director as having a questionable gang he is secretly working with. They should be probed, seriously. This revelation will remain in the minds of the public with a lot of meanings for a long, long time to come. The trick has exposed the regional director. It has blown the lid off something on which the public must keep its eye.

"And it confirms what we’ve heard in the tape that the regional director himself, just for his own good, should be careful with characters like this. I mean how can you, a PRO, start sharing secrets with someone you don’t know on whatsapp without crosschecking his or her background first and even went as far as agreeing to send a woman to the guy (the reporter) to pretend as a girlfriend to tap his sources for you. Does he know the implications? And this is supposed to be a PRO,” John Aniah, a tutor, fumed.

A medical officer at the Upper East Regional Hospital told Starr News anonymously:

"His (Stanley's) failure to crosscheck first the background of the faceless person he was chatting with on whatsapp reveals dangerous ineptitude on his part and only shows that he also didn’t crosscheck the facts before he concluded with the regional director that vehicles had been stolen.

And why should a whole regional chairman go and assault a journalist in his office? I’m so shocked that a lecturer and former POTAG president would do that.

This is shameful, sad and not good for any society. Sydney, too, should be investigated because we are reliably informed about the circumstances of his employment at the directorate and how he has been a protégé and spy for the regional director.”

Rahinatu Ibrahim, a tertiary student, said: “I have never taken him (Mr. Abopaam) serious since the issue about the so-called missing cars came up at the Ghana Health Service. He is really making matters worse for the director (Dr. Kofi Issah). He has been speaking for the directorate on this matter, meanwhile he’s not a worker there.

What does he know? He was the one who argued publicly that the director did not apologise to the Director-General and challenged the journalist to show evidence.

The journalist produced evidence on facebook and it was embarrassing for the director to see such a letter in public. The journalist did the right thing because if he hadn’t shown the letter, we would have all believed the guy (Mr. Abopaam).

I have never taken him serious since I saw the evidence against his claims. Was he trying to tell lies or he himself didn’t even know his master had apologised? What sort of person is he?”

Public calls for arrests, return of pickup found in Dr. Issah's house

Some have called for Mr. Atintono to be prosecuted for the assault. A number of people also are of the view that Sydney, a worker at the regional health directorate, should face arrest because there is enough evidence showing he was at the house of the reporter with an unidentified figure in dark glasses around the period the reporter had received verbal threats on his way home. They say Mr. Abopaam should be arrested and thoroughly interrogated not only because his distribution of the audio tape is linked to Mr. Atintono’s assault on the reporter but he also had referred to Sydney, who was spotted with an unknown figure at the reporter's house, as “one of us” during the undercover inquiry.

It would be recalled that Starr News’s investigations recently uncovered an official project pickup at Dr. Issah’s residence. Sources at the directorate had disclosed that he unduly gave out the car to his wife, a community health nurse. Dr. Issah was given an opportunity to respond to the allegations with the findings made at his house, but his reaction was rather “vague” and “sarcastic”. Angry residents, aware that the vehicle was meant for a critical project launched to help reduce premature deaths among mothers and children in the region, want the police to step into the matter as quickly as possible. Some have taken to social media including facebook, demanding the immediate sack of Dr. Kofi Issah.

Mr. Abopaam once denied the alleged use of the project pickup by Dr. Issah’s wife, saying the regional director (who already has an official saloon car) had taken it for himself because the trekking car (a V8 vehicle) he also had been given by the headquarters was in bad condition. People have challenged that claim, asking for proof that the V8 is out of order. And they are asking Dr. Issah to explain himself what the car was doing at his residence in the first place if he had not taken it for his wife as strongly claimed by sources within the directorate.

A whole week has passed after the publication of the findings with the directorate said to be thoroughly turning down proposals made by media houses for an open encounter on the matter. Scheduling a news conference also looks like the last thing the regional health director would do. This is probably because he does not know the questions the press will ask him.

Dr. Issah had told the public those cars had disappeared before he took over as regional boss. The alarm, seen by many including civil society organisations as false, nearly resulted in the Korean International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) cancelling a 9-million-US-dollar project agreement it had signed with the Ghana Health Service to help reduce deaths of pregnant women, nursing mothers and children in the Upper East Region. Project donors had become worried about the safety of vehicular resources in the region following Dr. Issah's announcement. The Director-General, who also has gone public to say Dr. Issah knows the whereabouts of the vehicles, has remarked that the regional director is only out to unjustifiably infest the tents of his predecessor, Dr. John Koku Awoonor-Williams, with bedbugs.