GJA Warns Stan Dogbe

The Western Regional chapter of the Ghana Journalist Association (GJA) has described as unfortunate attempts by Presidential Staffer Stan Dogbe, to discredit the journalists who were involved in an accident after covering the President’s activity in the region.

The accident occurred in the Ahanta West District at about 7:00pm on Monday, upon the team’s return from covering the President’s commissioning of a new community day Senior High School.

One of the vehicles in the convoy is said to have crashed into the press van which also had some NDC serial callers in it.


Although the journalists sustained minor injuries, one of them, Obrempong Yaw Ampofo, who is Citi FM’s Western Regional Correspondent, has been admitted at the Kwesimintsim Polyclinic in Takoradi.

Commenting on the accident in a Facebook post however, presidential staffer, Stan Dogbe, explained that members of the Presidential Press Envoy were not those involved in the accident.

He thus described reports in sections of the media as ‘irresponsible.’

Stan Facebook

But speaking to Citi News, the Western Regional Chairman of the GJA, Moses Aklorbotu, said inasmuch as the clarity from Stan Dogbe was appropriate, he should have been sensitive to the plight of the injured journalists who only sought to inform Ghanaians about the president’s work.

He said Mr. Dogbe’s concern was to merely insulate the presidency from the accident.

“I don’t think this kind of head-on collision with the media and Stan Dogbe’s alacrity to actually respond in such an aggressive manner to issues with regards to journalists will help anybody. We have to tango…It was obvious that we were not invited but we as trained journalists are told when to nose around and get stories.”

“The President himself knows that we shouldn’t be invited when we hear the news. The journalists came to the place and duly identified themselves. We agree that we have the presidential press corps that follows the President, and we in the region coordinate with them often when they get here,” he added.

Mr. Aklorbotu said the regional GJA will formally lodge a complaint to the national leadership for further action.

“…What he should have told us rather was to sympathize with my colleagues who provided coverage and told the people of Ghana that the 200 schools that the President promised, he is not sleeping and that he is working. I was not happy with the statement that the people were not part of the presidential press corps. It is good he said it; but he should remember that he was one of us. Let somebody else do it and let’s talk about it and not a member of the media. GJA has to act and we will inform our national executives accordingly; this is not supposed to be so” he lamented.

Mr. Stan Dogbe has in recent times engaged in some altercations with the media with his critics calling on the presidency to sanction him.

Monday’s accident comes barely two months after members of the presidential press corps were also involved in an accident on the Afienya-Dawhenya road in the Greater Accra Region, leaving Samuel Nuamah of the Ghanaian Times Newspaper dead, and several others injured.