Fire officers beat up journalists -over April Fool prank

Fire personnel at Nkoranza in the Bono East region on Monday allegedly assaulted journalists of local radio station Dero FM over an April fool prank.

According to reports in another local radio station naagyei fm, Dero fm, which is owned by deputy Defence minister Major Derick Oduro, had repeatedly reported of a fatal accident on Monday morning forcing the fire service to move to the said scene.

Consequently, the Fire Service personnel hurriedly mobilized their equipment and rushed to the supposed accident scene only to realize it was a prank being played by the station on their listeners on Monday April 1 popularly tagged as April Fool’s Day globally.

The fire personnel, who were angered by the incident, reportedly stormed the station and beat the on-air staff up destroying equipment as well.

The deputy minister confirmed the story in an interview with the local station.

“About six Fire Service men stormed the offices and started brutalizing the staff and have destroyed equipment in the studio. The unfortunate incident has been reported to the police and we hope action will be taken. We’ll not allow this matter to lay, we’ll take it until its logical conclusion.

The attack on the media in recent times is too much and we can’t allow this to happen. The law must work at all times,” he said.

He added: “If I were not to be a level headed person and as Deputy Minister of Defence I also organized Soldiers to go and attack the Fire Service Officers what do you imagine would have happened? But the law does not allow that.

I even expected the Fire Service Commander at Nkoranza to call me and apologize on behalf of his officers but no such thing has been done. I’m told he’s rather defending them on radio. We’ll see how the law will take its course on this matter”.