When A Genius Errs

A sage once said that no man has the capacity to CREATE the truth. According to him, truth had always been there, waiting to be uncovered; and that the art of Journalism is nothing more than the attempts to unveil hidden truths.

And human as we are, there are times when the issues we pursue as truths, especially in Journalism, later turn out to be falsehood.

The latest piece by Manasseh Azure Awuni on De-Eye Group clearly demonstrates this imperfection of man. What is left, however, is whether the 2011 GJA Journalist of the Year will summon the courage to admit that, ‘for once’, he was entangled in what is known in logic as a fallacy of hasty conclusion.

Clearly, the Ace Investigative Reporter has chalked a lot of successes in his journalism work, especially with his documentaries on Zoomlion, the Kanazoe Ford Expenditure Scandal, and others.

In the first story he uncovered some irregularities in the Sanitation Improvement Package contract (aka waste bin contract), in which it was proven that contracts were inflated and that sanitation workers in the country were being exploited.

In the second piece, he was hailed for the extensive job he did in the $100,000 Ford Expenditure ‘gift’ by Djibril Kanazoe, a Burkinabe contractor, to former President John Dramani Mahama.

In fact, the documentary was so thoroughly done that even the Commission of Human Rights and Administrative Justice(CHRAJ) agreed that President Mahama breached the country’s gift policy in accepting the Ford ‘gift’ from the Burkinabe Contractor whose company had been awarded contracts by the government of Ghana.

Mention can also be made of his wonderful investigative piece on Dr. Sulley Ali-Gabass, the senior medical doctor of Effia Nkwanta Regional Hospital, who had sodomised a 16 year old boy. After due legal process, an Accra circuit Court sentenced the doctor to 25years imprisonment.

It is therefore worrying that, with all these experiences, Manasseh would fumble so palpably in the De-Eye Group saga.

For the first time, it appears the community of opinions that had hailed him for close to a decade now thinks he was either not factual enough, or rushed to publish an unfinished work, or he was simply mischievous.

Many people cannot come to terms with how the man, who in the recent past, has painstakingly traversed various geographical terrains to uncover several hidden truths, couldn’t wait to smoothen the rough edges in his latest work before coming to conclusion.

HOW could he so hurriedly settle that the youth being trained at the Osu Castle were militiamen and women when indeed they were not? How come Manasseh of all people failed to know that De-Eye Group is a registered Limited Liability Company in Ghana and not state-owned as he alleged?

Again, what went amiss this time, that he failed to muster his usual courage to confront and interview the leader of De-Eye Group with his ‘hard facts’, the way his did to Ali-Gabass and the rest.?

Without any malice, THE PUBLISHER thinks Mr. Manasseh Azure Awuni has goofed big time, and the best thing for him to do is to eat humble pie, and admit that he presented an unfinished job to the world.

The paper is not asking that he begs for pity or mercy. All we are suggesting is that he admits he is human, and not infallible. There, his image will be honoured, even if his body had been crucified.