The Northern Regional chapter of the Ghana Journalists’ Association (GJA) has demanded that authorities of the University for Development Studies (UDS) apologize to a reporter of United Television (UTV) following an attack on the reporter by students of the University.
The GJA, in a statement issued in Tamale signed by Mr Caesar Abagali, its Regional Chairman, and copied to the Ghana News Agency, condemned the attack on the reporter saying it was “Primitive, barbaric, callous and backward.”
On Saturday, October 6, 2018, the President of the Students’ Representative Council (SRC) of the Nyankpala Campus of UDS attacked a UTV crew, damaged a motorbike of the crew as well as seized their camera’s tripod.
Sediq Kilwa, the SRC President of UDS Nyankpala Campus, supported by the University’s cadet corps and other SRC executives, also verbally assaulted the UTV crew and other journalists, who were on the campus on an official assignment.
The UTV crew, including journalists from other media houses in the Northern Region, was officially invited by the authorities of the UDS to provide media coverage for the University’s 26th matriculation ceremony.
Sediq Kilwa and his student friends accused the UTV crew of reporting a news story on UTV last week, which suggested that the SRC organized a “sex party” for fresh students, a report, which the students said was untrue and had damaged the image of the University.
The GJA’s statement called on Authorities of UDS to institute immediate sanctions against the students as well as take steps to replace the damaged equipment for the news crew and pay medicals for the assaulted reporter.
It gave authorities of UDS a week’s ultimatum to address the GJA’s demands so as not to mar the long working relationship it has with the media in the region.
The statement also called on the police to immediately arrest the SRC President as well as expedite investigations into the incident.
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