Claim: President-elect Joseph Boakai has vowed to tackle corruption in his administration. This message has gone viral on social media chatrooms and was on the GNN news website.
Verdict: Misleading! Our findings show that it is an old statement posted by Amb. Boakai on July 12, 2023, on his Facebook page before the heat of the 2023 general elections. Also, GNN has deleted the publication on its website, while the Unity Party has released a disclaimer on the statement in circulation.
Full Text
The National Elections Commission (NEC) has declared opposition leader Joseph Boakai the winner of the run-off elections in Liberia.
Boakai won with 814,428 votes, representing 50.64% of the total votes cast, with the incumbent George Weah polling 793,910, representing 49.36 of the votes. Before NEC declared Boakai a winner of the polls, President George Weah called to concede defeat to his rival.
However, on Sunday, Nov 19, 2023, the GNN newspaper published a statement purporting to be from Boakai in his capacity as president-elect on its website. The statement titled: “Special statement by Amb. Joseph Nyumah Boakai Sr, Standard Bearer, Unity Party and President-elect, Republic of Liberia” talks about targeting corruption from the first day of his administration.
The statements highlight ways and strategies the Boakai government intends to fight corruption and prosecute corrupt leaders of the Weah administration. The message triggered some controversy among Liberians.
Verification
In verifying this claim, DUBAWA discovered that GNN had deleted the article from their website a few hours after circulation.
In addition, the statement was posted by Amb. Boakai on July 12, 2023, but without the heading as President-elect. At the time, the 2023 electoral process was yet to commence fully.
To further debunk the content of the new statement that has gone viral, the Unity Party, on Nov. 19, 2023, released a disclaimer on the report in circulation.
The statement posted via Secretary General Amos Tweh’s Facebook page clarified that the information was false.
Conclusion
After DUBAWA’s verification, it is proven that the statement circulating about Amb. Boakai has been manipulated.
