The Konkomba ethnic group in Ghana calls for an end to negative and/or defamatory reportage against them by the country’s media houses.
Media houses in Ghana are bent on tarnishing the image of the hardworking and peaceful second and eighth largest ethnic group in the Northern Region and Ghana respectively through the negative [ads1]reportage. Konkomba is a name of an ethnic group living in Ghana with their capital town based in Saboba. Konkombas are indigenous Ghanaians and are predominantly farmers, producing food to feed mother Ghana.
The ethnic group place more value on physical hardworking activities like farming and anybody who did not like to go to farm was tagged as lazy, this made them not to initially embrace formal education because, any healthy person who was not a farmer was considered a lazy person and not valued by the Konkomba society, such people found it difficult securing women to marry.
This probably was the reason why the people had few formally educated people to speak for them in case of any happenings in their neighborhood. (This has changed over time). The ethnic groups who later entered Gold Coast (Modern day Ghana) with the aim of expanding their territories and colonizing the locals came to meet Konkomba as indigenous people(already settled in Ghana in their numbers) but the use of weapons to fight konkombas by those immigrants compelled them to move while the people followed with the aim of taken away their lands, Konkombas did not see this as anything to fight the people or avenge and so allowed them, after a while those people started troubling and pressurizing the konkomba until they reacted to those recurrent attacks beginning from 1980s, These people upon realizing that the people they seek to displace and tag as non Ghanaians are growing from strength to strength in terms of numbers and were resisting the plans of the oppressors, they were quick to tag them as violent people in the least misunderstanding or provocation, they publish bad stories about them(konkomba) in gullible media houses who do not bother to investigate the reality of the matter. Konkomba sees this as an attempt to tarnish their image and or create a wrong impression about the innocent ethnic group.
The media Since 1980s continue to link the name konkomba with violence and calling them all sort of names, in fact! One even wrote describing konkomba as people with tails and lives in holes, just imagine this, coming from a right- thinking person?. This attitude of the Ghanaian media practitioners still persists in this modern era as the renowned starrfm mal-appropriated the word “rebels” linking it with the people. Below are some of the excerpts of reactions from konkomba to some negative reportage by some media houses (Starrfm and today’s newspaper to be specific)
“The attention of Konkombas was drawn to the latest publications by some media houses in Ghana: Starrfmonline and Today’s newspaper tagging Konkombas as rebels when the issue that sparked the clashes was a land dispute. This reportage did not get down well with the well-meaning Konkombacompelling them to issue a rejoinder as seen below: “The Konkomba fraternity in Ghana wish to react to the publication on June 16, 2018 by one Kwame
Acheampong on starrfmonline.com and copied/published by Today’s Newspaper news portal with the heading: “Cheriponi: 19 Konkomba ‘Rebels’arrested”we want to draw the attention of the media house as a matter of urgency that the use of the words “KONKOMBA and REBELS” have the tendency of defaming and or tarnishing the image of Konkomba ethnic group in Ghana. There have been many instances where the media stations in Ghana publish stories using the ethnic group name “Konkomba” when in a fact the people involved have identity apart from their ethnicity.
But when it involves other ethnic groups, names of towns are used instead of the ethnic groups involved. We were all in this country when the issue of Fulani herdsmen and the people of Agogo broke out and there was nowhere one could see or hear a media house reporting that the clashes between Fulani herdsmen and Asantes, but when there was the same clashes in Ejura, Today’s Newspaper boldly published with a heading “RAMPAGING KONKOMBAS DECLARE WAR ON FULANIS”.
It is the high time our media houses stopped the use of the collective name Konkomba where the issue could be dealt with on the individual basis. We were expecting the media in this Naduni Community issue to use the identity of the people involved such as their community names or their personal names and not as the media has done which implies that all Konkombas in Ghana are rebels. We want the media house (s) to look at the meaning of the word “Rebels”.
Rebels according to Collins Cobuild Advanced Learners Dictionary (New Edition) “are a group of people who are fighting their own country’s army in order to change the political system there”: With the above definition of the term rebels, is it ethical to refer to an ethnic group or the people arrested in Naduni case as rebels? Were the people fighting or planning to fight the army for any political reason? In the publication, the author went ahead to fabricate the story that “19 Konkomba youth were heavily armed and allegedly conspiring to launch an ambush reprisal attack against a number of villages inhabited by Chokosi minority”.
The author again inconsistently reported that the police chief said the security upon reaching the community rounded up nearly 20 people including the village chief, after which a search was conducted in the chief’s palace where 15 firearms were seized”.
The mind-boggling question we want to ask the author of this publication is that if the youth were heavily armed as reported, why were the only 15 firearms found in the chief’s palace? Were those arms single barrel guns or they were sophisticated guns? While looking for the answers to those questions asked so far, we want to create the indulgence of the media houses that, we are not in any way defending the action or inactions of the community people but we want everybody to know that every farmer owns a single barrel gun which they use for hunting and to expel rodents especially partridges on their farms, so it is not uncommon to find those firearms with the local people, hence the number found in a chief palace.
We the concerned Konkomba Youth spread across the length and breadth of Ghana want to send signals to all well-meaning Ghanaians that Konkombas are not violent people, neither are we warmongers. We would want to urge Starrfm and other media houses to avoid the armchair kind of journalism and always ensure that they get a balanced story from both ends before they rush to publish stories which can’t be verified. These unethical and Armchair reporters are always bent on painting Konkomba in the negative light through their negative reportage whenever there is an issue that has to do with Konkomba settlements. The media houses want it to look like konkombas are always at war with people.
This bias, negative, unethical practice must stop henceforth because we won’t be writing a rejoinder next time but we shall meet in the law courts to redeem our good image if such unscrupulous reporters do not mend their Machiavellian ways of doing journalism. Konkombas are not at war with Chokosis, the issue was purely a land dispute and must be seen and reported as such.
We want to reiterate and urge every media practitioner or reporter to always conduct a thorough investigation into issues before publishing, stories of this nature should not be hurriedly published with the aim of getting many people visiting the site but the authenticity must be the top priority We want to also urge all media to stop using the name Konkomba in publishing stories that has to do with violent.
Long live Ghana, Long Live Konkombas!l.
Abraham Njonaan Nlenkiba
0247181806/hamkiba@gmail.com.
