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| - Claim: Former Vice President attends 2025 Christiansborg Crossroad Shootings commemoration event
Source: Facebook
Verdict: Misleading
Researched by Alfa Shaban
GhanaWeb, Ghana’s leading news portal, shared photographs of the former Vice President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, at a wreath-laying ceremony, to portray his presence at the February 28, 2025, Christiansborg Crossroad Shootings commemoration.
The caption accompanying the photos read: “Today, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia joined the nation in commemorating the 28th February Christiansborg Crossroads Shooting Incident. This solemn occasion honors the courageous ex-servicemen who, in 1948, peacefully marched to present a petition to the British governor, only to be tragically shot by colonial police.”
GhanaFact monitored that a few minutes after GhanaWeb’s post, the lead platform of the Media General group, TV3, also posted a similar message of Bawumia’s participation in the same event.
Hours later, other platforms under the group, Onua TV, 3FM and Onua FM, replicated the same images with the same captions.
Ghanaweb’s post at the time of drafting the report, had garnered over 2,700 reactions, 390 comments and 233 shares, while TV3’s post had 436 likes, 80 comments and 55 shares.
This report seeks to verify whether the former Vice President was indeed at the 2025 edition of the commemorative event.
Fact-check
GhanaFact ran a Google Reverse Image search of the first image used by both TV3 and GhanaWeb, and found an upload of the photo dating as far back as 2022.
Using the Advanced Search function on Dr Bawumia’s Facebook page, GhanaFact found the original post made in 2022 when he represented then President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo at the 28th February Crossroads Shooting commemorative event.
Supporting evidence was also found in news publications by the Business & Financial Times (B&FT), MyRepublic.com, between March 1 and March 3, 2022, and a post by a Facebook user Assin y3 mi City, who posted the same set of images currently being circulated.
Additionally, the fact that Dr Bawumia and all other persons captured in the photos were wearing nose masks piqued our interest because the period within which masks were obligatory was between 2021 and 2022.
GhanaFact further reviewed footage from today’s commemorative event (the 77th anniversary) held today, February 28, 2025 and the former Vice President was not in attendance.
When GhanaFact reached out to journalists in the two media houses with our findings, they all admitted the misleading nature of their postings and have since pulled down the posts in question.
Verdict
The claim that Bawumia joined the 2025 edition of the Christiansborg Crossroads Shooting event is False and the images are misleading.
About the 28th February Crossroads Shooting
It was an incident that happened in 1948 when the colonial police shot and killed three ex-servicemen in Accra. The victims were marching peacefully to present a petition to the then Governor of the Gold Coast.
Sergeant Adjetey, Corporal Attipoe, and Private Odartey Lamptey were veterans of World War II, having fought in the Gold Coast Regiment of the Royal West African Frontier Force.
They were promised pensions and jobs after the war, but received little compensation and no jobs. The three and other compatriots organized the demonstration to present a petition demanding their promised benefits.
When they reached the Christiansburg Crossroad, the colonial police chief ordered them to disperse, and when they refused, he opened fire.
Every year, a ceremony is held to honour the three deceased and all ex-servicemen. The ceremony includes a flag-raising and wreath-laying. This year’s event was attended by Vice President, Prof Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang as Guest of Honour with the Minister of Interior, Muntaka Mohammed-Mubarak and his counterpart at the Defense Ministry, Edward Omane Boamah, in attendance.
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