Media accreditation for Obama's visit: a spectacular mess

By Oko Sankah

When the over 300 foreign journalists who came to cover President Barack Obama’s historic visit to Ghana leave the shores of the country, they will be leaving with lots of great stories, pictures and memories, but one very messy story and memories about media accreditation. So much has been done to ensure that everything went right during President Obama 22 hours in Ghana. I wish I could say Kudos to the local organisers of the visit, but no. Media accreditation was a mega blot; probably the mother of all messes in the history of state events in this country.

Media accreditation for the visit was largely handled by the Ministry of Information; at least from what we were told as journalists. That being the case, my advice to President John Evans Atta Mills is that, if he really wants the image of this government, and indeed this country, to be what he wants it to be then he must reconsider the calibre of people he has put in charge of that ministry.

The Obama visit was probably the litmus test for what the minister, Zita Okaikoi, and her two deputies, Samuel Okudjeto-Ablakwa and James Agyenim-Boateng, are really made of. The three, with the help of Ms Anthony and their cronies, Stan Dogbe (of the Joy FM rape case fame) and some boys from a rival group journalist to the GJA, managed to make a spectacular mess of media accreditation for the coverage of President Obama’s historic visit.

By way of a summary before the details €“ lots of local journalists who had their names on the list of accredited journalists did not get accreditation but some other people whose names were not on the list did. In some cases, a single reporter from a particular media house was assigned to two pools whiles their colleagues from the same media house were not assigned to any pool. Loads of foreign journalists who paid GHC50 for accreditation did not get them and some, particularly those from Nigeria demanded a refund and it turned into serious verbal exchanges in Room 24 on the first floor of the ministry, where the accreditations where lodged. A couple of €œsmall boys€ engaged the foreign journalists in a jaw-jaw, insisting that the money paid was not for accreditation to cover the visit but for state permit to operate in Ghana for three days. The foreign journalists were peeved because they were not made to understand, from the onset, that they paid for state permit and not for accreditation to cover Obama. The result was that they were stranded because even though they are in Ghana, they can’t cover the visit. Journalists were tossed to and fro the ministry and National Security office €“ The two €œsmall boys€ at the ministry (who were not staff of the ministry but cronies of the ministers) directed journalists to National Security for their accreditation, and National Security sent the journalists back saying that they had nothing to do with accreditation for journalists. There were also issues with live TV pictures for overseas stations.

It all began unfolding when the ministers, together with their €œUS counterparts€ (Ben East from the US Embassy and one Samantha from the CIA) invited the press for a conference on the afternoon of July 9, 2009. The original invite was for July 8, 2009 and it only said the media was being invited for a €œpress conference€ on President Obama’s visit. Knowing what press conference was all about, both local and international media trouped to the venue ahead of time and mounted their cameras, microphones and recorders.

Minutes later than the scheduled time for commencement, the minister and his deputies walked in late; no apologies to the media; the minister went to the microphones and announced that their €œUS counterparts€ were yet to arrive; they did in minutes and after a tet-a-tet with them, the minister went to the microphones again and announced that the briefing was €œoff the record€ because it was just to inform the media about the dos and don’ts during the visit and not for public consumption. There was huge murmuring in the room, and rightly so, because the ministry and their €œUS counterparts€ could have spared journalists the hustle by stating in the invite that the meeting was off record. Maybe that last minute announcement was also intentional to give journalists a taste of American’s usual bossy posture.

Later when the meeting got going, the foul-mouth deputy minister, Okudjeto-Ablakwa decided to take a swipe at Ghanaian journalists by stating that during the coverage, there would be snacks on the designated buses for journalists, but even though Ghanaian journalists preferred envelopes (money), there would be no envelopes. Indeed he later had to eat humble pie and apologise when Kofi Abotsi of VOA demanded it. During question time, issues about how foreign television stations could get to broadcast the events live came up and James Agyenim-Boateng decided to address that issue by saying that GTV was working with the US-based NBC to provide live footage to all stations here and abroad. But a reporter from US-based Associate Press provided authentic information, which the deputy minister did not seem to have a clue about; the reporter told the deputy minister that he had spoken with both GTV and NBC and had confirmed that the NBC feed will only reach five other US-based stations and none other. The deputy minister could have taken his cluelessness in good faith and done a thorough check but rather took a swipe at the reporter by saying €œI think you are not on top of the issues because I checked with the GTV boss and he confirmed what I said.€ It turned out that the deputy minister was wrong because even BBC, a London-based TV network did not get the feed from the arrangement the deputy minister prided himself with.

But those were just signs of a bigger mess that was to come- accreditation. As usual, it was announced that accredited journalists had been randomly assigned to pools. Okudjeto-Ablakwa announced that the pools had already been completed and the list would be on the notice board of the ministry after the briefing. This was at a time when several journalists, local and foreign, had no indication of having been accredited. True to their fears, they later checked the notice board and confirmed that indeed, they had not been accredited.

Those who found their names on the list were glad, but that was short-lived for a lot of them. The following day at 11.00hours, journalists whose names were on the published list showed up at the Ministry to collect their accreditation card; some got theirs but lots of others did not. Much later in the day, those who did not get were referred to the offices of National Security to collect their accreditation. At National Security, they were told that their pictures had been mixed up so those who got there earlier had fresh photographs taken of them; those who got there later were turned away for good. These included major local state-owned media and major foreign media journalists. But do Zita, Okudjeto-Ablakwa, Agyenim-Boateng and worse of all Stan Dogbe and the other small boys who handled media accreditation understand these things with their level of experience in such huge ventures? The staff of the ministry, including the ministers and Ms Anthony, who personally collected money from foreign journalists, left the fate of journalists in the hands of their cronies, who demonstrated that they were nothing more than a bunch of ignoramus. Okudjeto-Ablakwa, for instance, announced at the €œoff the record€ press briefing that those who needed still pictures should source them from the Information Services Department (ISD) and the Ghana News Agency (GNA), and yet he did not follow through to ensure the GNA reporters and camera person, for instance, had accreditation to deliver. It turned out the GNA camera person was put only in the Cape Coast pool. At least three other GNA reporters, who had their names on the published list, did not get accreditation. The question then is, what does Okudjeto-Ablakwa want GNA to feed the other media houses with, air? Some of us were made to understand that we could depend on GNA for stories from events that we do not have access to and yet GNA reporters have also been denied access to those events.

Mr. President, the ball is really in your court. There is no doubt that your stewards at the Information Ministry have made a historic mess of the media accreditation for this historic visit. Cronyism and ignorance is largely to blame for the mess. I would not give my five-year old son’s party to Stan Dogbe to organise €“ how could he be given such a huge responsibility without some professional supervision; Oops, sorry, the ministers themselves are rookies. This is no hate talk €“ the mess is evident. That is what happens when small boys handle big things.ENDS