Misinformation and Violence: Perspectives for Ghana’s Election 2024.
The intensity of the campaign with its heightened tension and political undercurrent is capable of destabilizing Ghana’s stable 32 year old democracy.
As the nation braces itself for the showdown, the integrity of the electoral process takes center stage especially the journey of that humble but powerful piece of paper – the ballot. Both parties (NPP and NDC) have either accused or defended the arbiter or referee (Electoral Commission) of bias in the management of the electoral processes from voter registration to voter exhibition stages.
These are crucial exercises to credible elections in many jurisdictions and have caused many countries sustained violent conflict emanating from electoral violence. Ghana’s political discourse has seen much misinformation and disinformation aimed at character assassinations, defamation and vote renting in its young democracy. Ghana’s Infosystem space is crucial to the 2024 general elections because most of the youthful population are very active on social media where there is marginal control of information flow. The fierce contest in this year’s elections has seen the tremendous use of the internet and new media in the dissemination of campaign messages to score political advantageous points as either party (NPP and NDC) wants to break or unbreak the eight (8).
Rumours and misinformation are conflict drivers that fuel political and electoral tensions and violence in Africa. This is because many African communities have lived in information-constrained environments with few opportunities to corroborate news. As a result, inaccurate stories spread widely before being countered. Even then, these false perceptions may never be fully erased. In the meantime, individual and collective responses to the distortions, especially those that are threatening in nature, may set off a cycle of violence. Ghana in the last decade has seen active participation in its electoral processes due to high penetration of mobile telephoning and internet usage by its citizens especially the youth bracket.
According to Geopoll online survey and GSMA Intelligence, in 2024, mobile penetration in Ghana experienced significant growth. There were approximately 38.95 million mobile
connections, representing 113% of the population. This suggests the widespread use of multiple SIM cards, which is common in many African countries. According to industry reports, the mobile- internet space is playing a crucial role in connecting more Ghanaians to the digital world.
By the beginning of 2024, around 70% of mobile connections in Ghana were broadband, ranging from 3G to 5G, up from 68% in the previous year. The number of mobile connections has consistently grown, reflecting an increasing adoption of mobile internet services. Subsequently, the Ministry of Information, recorded an average of about 22 million Ghanaians using mobile telephony and actively on the internet in 2022. This has also accounted for the much misinformation and disinformation bandied around within the already polarized tense political ecosystem within the social media and traditional media space.
Though the ministry of information is taking steps to prevent the use of misinformation and disinformation within the media space, the exploitation of the weakness of these information systems by opportunistic politicians and media owners have often trumpeted feigned grievances and imaginary enemies to mobilize popular support behind self-interested positions with predictably polarizing effects on the affected societies.
Citizens are left without the information they need to properly assess the causes of social, political, and economic problems they face or to assist in formulating and monitoring effective responses. In Kenya, an independent review commission established to investigate the 2007 post-election violence found that the live broadcasts of some vernacular language radio stations were inflammatory. Similarly, listeners were told to “arm themselves against their enemies,” drawing uncomfortable parallels with Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines’ infamous role in fanning passions during Rwanda’s 1994 genocide. Unsubstantiated information also exacerbated social tensions in Egypt during the swine flu outbreak of 2009. Although the spread of the H1N1 influenza virus had nothing to do with pigs, roughly 300,000 were slaughtered in the country’s entire stock as a way of controlling the spread of the disease. At the time, there had not been a reported case of H1N1 in Egypt. Christian farmers accused the government of religious intolerance.
Reports of this sort worsened already strained Muslim-Christian relations and may have indirectly contributed to the rioting of thousands of protesters and clashes with police following the murder of six Coptic Christians in January 2010. These are some of the end results of misinformation and disinformation.
The Media have played a role in deepening these tensions. Indeed, an analysis of the attacks by Chatham House concluded that the Nigerian government needed to “take steps to curb hate-speech and control rumours” because tensions were exacerbated by the uncertainty created by President Umaru Yar’Adua’s unexpected departure from Nigeria in November 2009 for medical treatment. Contradictory accounts of his health in the Nigerian press added to the confusion in Abuja. Since the president left Nigeria without properly transferring power to the vice president and without communicating with the Nigerian people, it wasn’t clear who was in control. Rumours and uncertainty of this sort, fuel instability and violence. The scenario in Nigeria was evident in Ghana when in 2012 the then president of Ghana Professor Evans Fiifi Atta Mills’ health became a big issue for political campaigns by the then opposition New Patriotic Party largely within the media circles especially the new media space spreading misinformation and disinformation to the effect that the president was even dead when he had travel abroad to seek medical attention. The effects of rumour and misinformation are not limited to dramatic episodes of violence. They also affect the long-term health of African societies.
After years of effort, in 2004 the World Health Organization (WHO) was aiming to finally eradicate polio as part of a global campaign to vaccinate communities where the disease persisted. Nigeria was one of the six remaining countries that hosted the polio virus. However, misinformed Muslim leaders in the northern Nigerian states of Kano, Kaduna, and Zamfara claimed the vaccine program was a Western plot designed to sterilize Muslims and called for a boycott. Another unfounded rumour had it that the vaccine was, in reality, the HIV/AIDS virus and that it was being administered to reduce the size of the Muslim population. Consequently, many parents tragically stopped allowing their children to be vaccinated. WHO spent the next several years combating the rumour. Nonetheless, by then the Nigerian virus had spread to other African nations and in 2009 there were polio outbreaks in 19 previously unaffected countries. Today, Nigeria continues to host the largest number of polio cases in the world.
Africa’s Evolving Infosystems, political instability, personal insecurity, disease, and persistent poverty are just a few of the concrete damaging outcomes of rumours, misinformation due to unprofessional and underdeveloped African media. Weak information and communications networks leave people vulnerable and political systems unstable and this is evidential in the run-up to the 2024 elections as a result of a sophisticated media space where misinformation spread happens in real time and fast to gain political advantage. Conversely, as noted by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, “Giving vulnerable people the right information at the right time is a form of empowerment. It enables people to make the decisions most appropriate for themselves and their families and can mean the difference between being a victim or a survivor. The objective of an effective communication system in a functioning democracy is to fill the public sphere with factually grounded information that assists government officials, civil society, and the general public in their efforts to find appropriate solutions to mutually recognized problems such as opaque marginalized electoral processes.
Where powerful institutions are closed, secretive, and remote from citizens’lives, the media, in turn, will remain underdeveloped, unprofessional, and regarded as a threat to political stability and human security. Where the press is allowed to operate responsibly and freely, citizens benefit from an open and honest public dialogue about the problems they face. Research also points to a strong relationship among democratic institutions (including a free and functioning press), economic development, and the avoidance of conflict. Viewed in this way, a country’s political stability is only as good as its systems for communicating timely and reliable information. Transparent and accountable electoral processes, security and economic and democratic development are strengthened by information systems that promote accountability and transparency. An inclusive and participatory electoral process is a sure guarantee to foster and consolidate Ghana’s democratic gains in the 2024 general election.
As the tensions brew up, witnessed in the current 8th Parliament of Ghana, the constitutional banter between the Legislative and Judicial arm of governments, a clear path to increased stability and peaceful elections is enshrined in initiatives that strengthen media, intra-societal communication, and access to valuable information.
The author, Adu-Twum Sadiq, is a conflict, peace, security, media and communication
practitioner.
Fellow@West Africa Centre for Counter-Extremism (WACCE)
Executive Director, Centre for Security, Media and Governance Studies, Africa.
Email: sssadiqadutwum@gmail.com