A circuit court in Ghana’s capital, Accra, has sentenced a blogger to 30 days imprisonment over false news that he published in 2022. Jeffrey Epprim Nyame, who runs the blog, reportghana.net, received the sentence on Thursday, August 23, 2024.
He had been on trial for close to two years for a story that he published in October 2022, titled: “Dollar account holders to get cedi at BoG rate for bank withdrawal effective 31st Oct?”
The story purported that persons who held dollar accounts were to be given the local currency, Ghana cedi, when withdrawing, rather than dollars. Withdrawals would be at the Bank of Ghana rate which is usually lower than the rates in the open forex market.
Prosecutors argued that the publication had caused panic among persons with dollar accounts, leading to panic withdrawals that inconvenienced banks.
The blogger had been arrested together with an IT Professional, Jeremiah Kobina Egyabeng, who had been accused of abetting the crime of publishing false news. However, Egyabeng was later acquitted and discharged.
At a point in the two-year trial, John Baptist Ayitse, a lawyer acting as a friend of the court, pleaded for clemency for Nyame, saying the blogger was young and had learned his lesson. Layer Ayitse prayed the court to at least hand him a non-custodial sentence.
Nyame himself had become contrite and fallen on the mercy of the court with a solemn pledge not to repeat the offence.
However, the presiding Judge, Isaac Addo, would have none of it, insisting on handing down a custodial sentence to the blogger instead of the requested non-custodial one.
The judge expressed serious concern about what he said is the proliferation of false news, especially on social media, saying there was a need to crack the whip.
The Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) is appalled by the high-handedness of the trial judge. Though we do not condone or encourage the publication of false news, we believe that the sentence is too harsh. Especially so, when the blogger had shown contriteness over his conduct in the two years that the state prosecuted him.
At a time when there is advocacy for non-custodial sentencing so that Ghana’s justice system can truly be penitential for offenders, the least the judge could have done was to give the blogger non-custodial sentence, given the nature of the offence. And the blogger was being prosecuted for false news as a first-time offender.
The MFWA would like to call on President Akufo-Addo to issue a pardon to Jeffery Epprim Nyame, so the high-handedness of the trial judge can at least be mitigated.
Meanwhile, this harsh sentence only makes it all the more dutiful for the MFWA to reiterate calls to rid Ghana’s statutes of the laws that criminalize false news – Act 29 of the Criminal and Other Offences Act (1960) and the Electronic Communications Act, 776. These two laws continue to render ineffective, the repeal of the Criminal Libel Law by Ghana in 2001, even as they continue to serve as traps against journalists and media workers.
