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Claim: An anonymous newspaper in Liberia, The Masses’ Voice, alleges that Ghana’s President Nana Akufo-Addo has complained to the ECOWAS Parliament about his dissatisfaction with President Joseph Boakai’s unannounced visit to his country. Saharaa’s Facebook page further published that allegation.
Verdict: False. DUBAWA checks indicate The Masses Voice provided false news. While The Saharaa’s Facebook news page has remained silent, the Ghana Embassy in Monrovia has dismissed the report.
Full Text
An anonymous newspaper, The Masses’ Voice, reports a potential conflict between President Nana Akufo-Addo of Ghana and his counterpart in Liberia, President Joseph Boakai, over what it claims to be the latter’s unannounced visits to Ghana.
The Masses’ Voice reported, “Ghana’s President Nana Akufo-Addo complained about Liberia’s president to the ECOWAS parliament over a midnight visit to his country.”
The report by the newspaper has been published by a popular Facebook news page called The Saharaa and has since gone viral.
The controversial report came days after the office of the Liberian president announced a visit to Ghana. The announcement in part read, “Mr Boakai left Liberia on Tuesday, Feb 13, 2024, for a two-day working visit to Ghana. The post generated mixed reactions on Facebook, receiving over 59 shares, 102 comments, and 62 emojis.”
While it is true that Liberia’s President visited Ghana, there has been considerable controversy over whether the Ghanaian president indeed complained about the supposed misconduct of his colleague to the ECOWAS Parliament.
DUBAWA has decided to investigate the claim because of the potential diplomatic row this claim can have on the two countries if it goes unchecked.
Verification
DUBAWA first decided to check the authenticity of the newspaper, The Masses Voice, that published the report.
DUBAWA checked the newsstands and online platforms on Saturday, Feb 17, 2024, to confirm the existence of copies of the newspaper or its online version but found nothing apart from a Facebook page that bears the name.
The researcher then asked the management of The Saharaa’s Facebook page and The Masses’ Voice on Messenger for details about their platforms. The platforms are yet to respond to the inquiries.
Additional research showed the paper may have been AI-generated. Reverse image search on Google, TinEye, and other AI tools discredited the paper’s existence.
See attached:
DUBAWA also found the newspaper page of President Nana Akufo-Addo was created using https://newspaper.jaguarpaw.co.uk/, a free online newspaper generator that allows users to develop spoof newspaper articles. This is not the first time this has happened. Several reports in the past have debunked fake newspaper clips generated using AI tools.
DUBAWA also spoke to the President of the Publisher Association of Liberia, Mr Othello Garblah, who also dismissed the existence of The Masses’ Voice on the newsstand in Liberia. In a Messenger chat, Mr Garblah said he does not know of any newspaper in Liberia with such a name as The Masses’ Voice.
However, DUBAWA sighted a Facebook page named The Masse’s Voice with a joint statement purported to be coming from the African Union and the Ecowas Commission on the alleged complaint President Akufo-Addo made to ECOWAS against President Boakai.
A visual appraisal of the statement shows that it is unsigned, which is out of sync with the administrative procedures of the ECOWAS. Further, when DUBAWA visited the ECOWAS website, there was no trace of this statement regarding Presidents Akufo-Addo and Boakai. Instead, there was a Feb 24 communique on the peace and security situation in the subregion. This communique was dated and signed.
Ghana government’s response
Meanwhile, the Embassy of Ghana in Monrovia has distanced itself from the social media news, describing it as false.
“The Embassy of the Republic of Ghana near Monrovia wishes to urge the general public in Liberia to disregard a piece of fake news or false statement ostensibly made to the ECOWAS Parliament by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo,” the Embassy said in a statement.
The embassy of Ghana categorically states that Ghana’s president did not make the statement in question.
Conclusion
The Saharaa Facebook page uploaded and amplified false information. During our investigation, we also established that Masses’ Voice as a paper has no trace of a website or any visibility on the newsstand in Liberia. However, a Facebook page bears its name (Masse’s Voice), which repeated the false claim about presidents Akufo-Addo and Boakai.
