Anas goes underground again

• Posted on February 15, 2016
• by Nana Kwesi Coomson
• Comment

Any individual or underground institutions involved in any form of child abuse in Africa and in the West, should be quaking in their boots, because undercover journalist, Anas Aremeyaw Anas is after them. He revealed this in an interview with France-based Radio France International (RFI). According to Anas, the investigations will be “quite elaborate” and “very huge, across the continent.” “Its interesting, it’s going to be about children, it’s going to be about some abuse, you’ll be shocked at the details, you will see,” he promised.

Anas recently shocked the country with his “Ghana in the eyes of God” investigations which revealed scores of judges, magistrates and judicial officers were allegedly involved in massive corruption. So far, about 26 judges have been sacked, while others are still under investigations. In his latest undercover investigations, Anas Aremyaw Anas did not want to reveal much, but assured “it’s hot, stay tuned for it.” Asked about which country this is happening, he responded; “Countries, not country, but it will also involve a country in the West.” Do you ever feel sorry for any of the people you expose? It’s a very difficult question. Look, you’ve got to be focused, sometimes the questions these people ask is, ‘why me, many people are doing it, why me?’ I don’t select people, before I go undercover, we have what we call establishing the prima facie evidence. So if I catch somebody committing a crime, or having committed a crime on a hidden camera, I catch that person because the person is in the habit of doing that. And it doesn’t matter how small or big you are, once the axe comes, you ought to fall.

The point is that corruption will be tackled from all angles, it doesn’t matter if the person is small or big. So it’s sometimes difficult and sometimes painful that you are going to take food off the table. Look at the judges, some of them have worked for 25 years, but measure it against the public good and ask how many bribes had this judge taken in his life? Look at rape cases, there was a judge who took money for rape, a judge who took money for land, a judge who took money for armed robbery. How do I know that the same armed robber that the judge has freed, could one day take a gun and attack me in my house. At the end of the day, it’s the public good that’s important, no matter the pain. How far will go in collecting evidence in the name of the public good? Undercover is a last resort, if there’s a conventional way of getting the information I will not bother, but crime has heightened, its gotten so high. If you don’t adopt such measures which shows you the evidence raw, you give room for the bad guys to punch holes into you. It’s not like the West where institutions are developed – where your arms of government, your judiciary, your executive, your legislature are developed, you have institutions that will troubleshoot the issue. Here on the continent, we have problems, institutions are not properly developed, the bad guys have a lot of money, they want to bribe their way through many processes. So a journalist of my kind must adopt measures to silence them for once and for all. And I tell you, if you have the hardcore evidence, no amount of pressure, no amount of money will put you down, you’ll be able to look forward and you’ll march confidently because you know you’re doing it for the people, and you are doing it genuinely for progress of society. So yes, I’ll go far, as far as that is the antidote to help nip corruption in the bud in our communities.

– citifmonline