When Barack Obama visited Ghana and commended Anas for his effort in fighting corruption, he wasn’t talking about this Anas who only needs money to get the attention of people who may ordinarily not have encountered that kind of temptation in their line of duty.
He was talking about the real Anas, the Anas I’m going to share with you, one of the world’s finest undercover journalist at the time.
He may be more famous today than he was back in 2009 but the truth is, he was recognised using a method consistent with professional ethics and passed as an example for the aspiring Investigative Journalists.
For some of us, we criticise Anas’ method today on the conviction that he knows how to do a good job but has opted for the lazy man’s approach lately. We criticise this method because he used to be an example for some of us and that we even analysed his works during training back in 2006
An undercover journalist must unearth real acts of corrupt.
You don’t create rot, entice people into your own created rot and expose those who fall for the bait and call it investigative journalism.
There is no evidence that beyond the result from your won trap, the wrong they did solely based on your own instigation were being done in their daily line of duty.
This is why any Anas documentary lately only exposes the bribe takers and not the bribe givers. What are some of the companies that benefitted from the supposed corrupt people in the galamsay scandal? Zero.
In view of this, even if there has been past dealings of granting fake accesses to galamsay sites, Anas cannot tell us who those beneficiaries are because his work begins and ends at his money being taken.
You call this investigation? It is sick, outdated and regressive and it holds on us to challenge him to do it right because those of us who know his histroy know that he is capable of more. I have met Anas twice at the New Crusading Guide office and I almost worshipped him. Over the past four years though, his standard has slipped, he is no more investigating, he only goes out to look for people to take his money and film them. If you don’t take it, you have integrity. That’s nonsense.
You like it because you are self-righteous, your excuse is that if they had integrity, they’d have rejected. You forget that in every crime, there are first time offenders and that it is easier falling to a conman than real bribers.
We just want Anas to do a better job because we know is is capable of that.
For those who don’t really know what Anas is capable of and so revelling in this mediocrity, let me walk you through the exploits of Anas and how far he used to go to expose evil people.
THAILAND PRISONS – 2006
This is the very first work of Anas that caught my attention and I never stopped following him since then.
Anas went undercover as a Catholic Priest in a prison at Thailand, worked there for sometime and exposed abuses and killings of African prisoners in Bangkok. He bribed no one, he went undercover proper.
EURO FOOD SCANDALE – 2006
This one is one of Anas’ biggest exposes.
In this investigation, Anas managed to secure a job as a menial worker in the company and used that to expose the comoany. Eurofood used expired and maggot infested flour for their products which were ly consumed by Ghanaians. He didn’t bribe anyone, the information was a revelation of real happenings in the company.
COCOA SMUGGLING EXPOSE
This time, Anas uses secrete cameras, faked being cocoa krakye and even as a rock (pic attached) to get footages of individuals who smuggled Ghana’s cocoa to Ivory Coast and by so doing, denying the nation a lot of revenues.
Some of the culprits are still serving jail terms because they were exposed in real act.
ORPHANS HOME OF HELL – OSU
This time, Anas went under cover in the OSU Children’s home, planted secrete cameras and captured caregivers abusing the children and dishing out or sort of treatment. He exposed people stealing food items donated to the children by philanthropists and brought a lot of revelations that included concealed deaths and what have.
It’s was this Anas, this same Anas who only goes round sharing money and recording those who take it lately.
SOJA BAR PROSTITUTION
I knew the inner dealings of Soja Bar at circle, it was a regular place of chilling for many young people. In the centre of the City, children proudly walked around looking for customers. I saw old men walk into rooms with kids of less than 17.
Everyone who went to Soja Bar for mere drinkup and sightseeing knew that a Messiah was needed to step in to stop the rot.
Behold, Anas comes, gets a job as a cleaner, used that to unearth the very core of Soja Bar’s operation.
Got some of the players arrested, including hardened criminals, drug addicts and rapist and that ended the piece of hell in circle. It was a pure undercover journalistic approach employed by Anas. Soja Bar was the biggest and baddest brothel for kids.
Some of the kids were adopted by Social Welfare
NOTE
In our quest to fight corruption and bring those who loot our state coffers to book, we must not lose sight of the fact that a wrong approach can create victims along the way.
Some of the people who fell to Anas’ bait have probably never encountered that kind of temptation to even be corrupt. Not all potentially corrupt people (which we all inherently are) get the opportunity to even express that weakness.
If you want to prove corruption, you have to go through the pain of exposing the person in a real act of stealing.
Don’t go sharing money and record people who take it, that’s not how to prove corruption.
We have to fix Anas, we have to push him to do it right because it involves the reputation of people who have families who probably resisted the temptation until they met the conmen
You claim you are not corrupt but you endorse a corrupt method for fighting corruption.
One thing some of you don’t realise is that we are losing Anas, we are losing the Anas who did clean jobs to a man who goes round sharing money and recording people.
All some of us want is the real Anas back, the right Anas for that matter