Justice Anthory Issah
Some staff members of the Tempane Senior High School on Monday, October 8, beat up a journalist with Rainbow Radio International, Justice Anthony Issah, who had gone to the school to monitor activities there after the suspension of the Headmaster, Dominic Ndegu Amolale, by the Ghana Education Service (GES).
According to the journalist, he visited Garu, his hometown, in the Garu District of the Upper East Region over the weekend and having heard of the suspension of the headmaster, he decided to travel to Tempane to monitor and ascertain activities in the school.
He said when he got to the school around 9:30am on Monday, he saw some teachers and other staff members of the school gathered under a big tree, and it seemed as though they were having a meeting ahead of an activity.
Later, Mr. Issah was told that the teachers were planning to abandon the innocent students of the school in protest against the suspension of the headmaster, but had to change the plan because the regional director of GES, Augustine Ayire Zang, was scheduled to visit the school at 10:00am.
According to him, his source in the school asked him to look for a safe place to sit because the teachers and other staff members were furious. Having engaged the teachers and students, the regional director warned them not to speak with anyone that tries to engage them in an interview.
According to Mr. Issah, soon after the regional director had finished addressing the students and left, some teachers and staff of the school identified him as a journalist and started questioning him of his mission there.
“Before I could answer a question, they started pushing me around and one man, who knows me very well, hit me at the back and later they started beating me up. I had to struggle with them to get the chance to run away from the school,” he narrated.
According to him, the teachers and staff of the school have threatened to kill and bury any journalist that comes to the school.
FROM: Ebo Bruce-Quansah, Bolgatanga