Contrary to accusations by Tema MCE, Felix Mensah Nii Anang-La, that the Metro TV journalist who carried a series of sanitation-related stories on his metropolis, is doing the bidding of someone or people intending to make him look bad in the eyes of his appointing authority, the journalist has outrightly denied any such claims.
Gabriel Nii Obodai Torgbor-Ashong has, in the last two weeks, produced three separate stories on the sanitation situation in the Tema Metropolitan area.
In his first story, he addressed the challenge posed by a broken sewer pipeline that had caused fecal matter to be spilled onto a portion of a road, following which the authorities moved in to address the situation.
In his second story, he brought to the attention of the public, the deplorable nature of the Anglican school at Manhean, where the roofing sheets of the buildings were falling off. Again, results were recorded after the Metropolitan Assembly went in to address the situation.
“Then we did a second story about the Manhean Anglican school which had its roofing in a deplorable state and that’s when the MCE started putting pressure on the PRO, saying that he should engage me or deal with me, as though he should arrange for us to follow up, and I was available for that. But again, the PRO was not able to arrange those interviews.
“So, they moved in to kick off the roofing of the Manhean Anglican school. Pictures were shared with me and I also shared it on my platform. I asked the PRO to arrange for an interview but he was not able to do so even until today,” he narrated.
However, by the time his third story was published, Felix Mensah Nii Anang-La, perhaps, felt too much of the heat that he decided to employ threats on the life of the journalist for what he believed was the failure of his public relations officer to stop the journalist.
“The third one was about a refuse dump at the beach. The area is called UH and I understand it’s been there for the past 10 years or so and that aired only last Tuesday. And the MCE had to call the PRO again, using unprintable words on him and claiming that if he is unable to deal with me, then he will do it himself.
Before long, the MCE had accused the journalist of being manipulated, or used by whoever to tarnish his image and present him badly in the eyes of his employer, but Gabriel has denied these accusations.
Speaking in a telephone interview with GhanaWeb, he insists that he was purely doing his work as it is and had no intentions of soiling anyone’s image, more so that of the Tema MCE.
“So, he called to say that I am being used to disgrace him at the time when the president is about to re-nominate people for the MMCEs positions. So, more or less like I am being used to undermine him and he reiterated this today when a colleague called him after which he dropped the line on her. And he was saying that I shouldn’t try him, warning me that he has reported me to my bosses at Zoomlion,” he explained.
Meanwhile, Gabriel Torgbor-Ashong has reported the case to the Ghana Journalists Association and will soon make an official report to the Ghana Police Service.
Felix Mensah Nii Anang-La is the Tema MCE