Blogger Jeffrey Epprim Nyame, who published false news that led to panicked bank withdrawals in 2022, has been sentenced to 30 days in prison.
Prosecutors said the publication forced dollar account holders to withdraw their money from various banks.
At the end of the trial, Nyame was found guilty of publishing false news by a district court in Accra presided over by Isaac Addo.
However, the court acquitted IT expert Jeremiah Kobina Egyabeng, who was imprisoned for aiding and abetting.
Earlier, friend of the court lawyer John Baptist Ayitse had asked the court not to impose a prison sentence on Nyame, arguing that the convict was young and had learnt from his mistake.
Nyame also asked the court for forgiveness because he had learned from the incident and would not repeat the act.
The trial judge said that in passing sentence he had taken into account the application for mitigation made by the accused and a lawyer who had represented Nyame as a friend of the court.
The court described the offence as a misdemeanor but noted that the publication of false news was a matter of great concern given the rise of social media.
It was pointed out that there was a need to establish discipline and sanctity in the accurate reporting of news.
In addition, journalists should be very careful when spreading news first.
The prosecution led by Assistant Commissioner of Police (ASP) Seth Frimpong had earlier stated that the police had gathered information on social media which revealed that Nyame published an article on his news portal reportghana.net on October 27, 2022 with the headline “…”.
The headline read: “Will dollar account holders receive cedis at BOG rate for bank withdrawals from October 31?” and was shared on various WhatsApp platforms, causing fear and panic among the public.
The prosecution said that during the investigation it was discovered that Egyebeng originally created the news portal for Nyame called reportghana.com in 2019. It was used to publish similar articles but was closed by Google following user complaints about violating community standards.
However, Egyabeng again created a similar new portal, but this time changed the domain from “dot com” to “dotnet” and registered it as reportghana.net on February 11, 2022, to be used for publishing articles and events in Ghana.
After publishing the said hoax, Nyame shared it on WhatsApp group platforms including “Reportghana News Feed 1”, “Reportghana News Feed 2” and “Reportghana News Feed 3” with over 160 active members, with him being the administrator and his personal phone numbers registered on the platform.
Prosecutors said Nyame admitted to publishing the alleged hoax while claiming he got the article from mynewsgh.com. However, investigations proved otherwise and confirmed Nyame as the author and publisher.
The court heard that Egyebeng admitted to creating the news portal managed and used by Nyame.
The public prosecutor’s office said further investigations had revealed the involvement of other people involved in the publication who were still at large.
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