The Ghana government’s failure to bring the slayers of investigative journalist, Ahmed Hussein Suale Divela, to book, has dragged on for six years now – January 16th, 2025 marked exactly six years of the dastardly assassination of the journalist which was perpetrated by, as of yet, unknown assailants, on January 16, 2019.
In the period, the Ghana government, previously headed by former President Nana Akufo-Addo, had promised to bring the perpetrators to book, pussyfooted on that promise and then eventually wound up revealing that it had not even built a docket on the case.
But this was not the worst of the government’s failings – the Akufo-Addo administration would add insult to injury by suggesting that Suale’s murder was unconnected to his work as a journalist.
The uproar that greeted that infuriating claim, also came along with it, a promise by then presidential candidate of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), John Dramani Mahama, that if he was voted into office in the 2024 elections, he would investigate Suale’s murder and bring the perpetrators to book. On January 7, 2025, Mr. Mahama was sworn into office as President, having won the December 2024 presidential election by a landslide.
With the power has come the duty on President John Dramani Mahama to fulfil his promise.
It is totally understandable that the new President has just nominated his Attorney General and that it will take the government some time to jostle into place, but immediately after settling down, we expect the government to start the investigation at full throttle.
The publicly available information on the Suale murder should make it easy to quickly build a docket for the case. In fact, the recent revelation by the Member of Parliament for Gomoa Central, Hon. Kwame Asare Obeng, that he has personally identified a high-profile suspect to the Police, makes any further delays in investigating the murder inexcusable.
This revelation provides the Mahama administration every impetus to commence an investigation soonest – starting with the arrest of this high-profile former Minister.
The unsolved murder of Ahmed Hussein Suale Divela continues to remain a bloody blot on human rights in Ghana, an insult to the freedom of the press and a trophy for the forces of impunity and scoffers of the rule of law.
The government has a leading responsibility to punish this crime and denounce everything that it symbolizes for the country. Six long years of failing to do so is already disappointing enough.
