VIDEO: How Journalist Was Assaulted...Team Mahama 2020 Apologises

Former President John Mahama has offered his personal apologies to a Joy FM staff, Kwesi Parker Wilson, his camp has said, following an assault on the journalist by security detail.

The incident is said to have occured during the start of Mr Mahama’s five-day tour of the Greater Accra Region ahead of the December 7 presidential primary of the National Democratic Congress (NDC).

A statement signed by James Agyenim Boateng, Spokesperson for the Mahama 2020 Campaign said the in-charge security has been informed about the incident.

"Our attention has been drawn to an unfortunate incident involving a security personnel and a reporter from Joy FM, Mr Kwesi Parker Wilson, during our meeting with delegates today at the Pentecost University College in the Anya Sowutuom constituency.

The in-charge of security has been informed and the matter is duly being investigated. In the mean time, Former President John Dramani Mahama, has offered his personal apologies to Mr Parker Wilson for the unfortunate incident," the statement read.

How It Happened

Meanwhile details are emerging of the incident following the release of a video shot by a citizen journalist and posted on the website’s iReport platform.

It shows gory details of how the journalist was slapped and severely manhandled after he tried taking a photograph of the former President at a campaign tour on Monday.

The reporter had, among other things, sought to get an exclusive interview with the former President and also attempted taking a photo of the former President to aid him in a report he was filing on the 5-day campaign tour of John Dramani Mahama in the capital, Accra.

But even before the reporter could piece together a report for his station’s evening bulletin, scores of sympathizers pounced on him and assaulted him after he was seen taking a photo of the former President.

Parker-Wilson was left dazed by the assault, as is evident in the video even as some persons close to the scene of the incident moved him away from the parameter of the former President and flagbearer hopeful of the largest opposition party in the country, the NDC.

Watch video of the incident below:



Attack on Journalists

This will not be the first time a journalist is suffering such an attack by members or sympathizers of various political parties in Ghana.

Earlier in the year, some reporters of TV3, Citi FM and GhanaWeb were brutally assaulted by members of the governing NPP’s Invisible Forces. The reporters who got a hint of a planned protest by some members of the ruling New Patriotic Party from the Ellembele constituency to demand a clean register ahead of their elections in January 2018 went to the party office to cover the incident.

But in the discharge of their duties, as mandated by law, the journalists were beaten.

The well-built members of the Invisible Forces allegedly slapped and hit a camera operator with GhanaWeb causing him to fall to the ground. He was then kicked on the ground severely and his camera seized for ‘attempting to shoot without permission.’