President John Dramani Mahama has stated that government has deployed a system to identify persons who hide behind social media to preach hate online.
He said the National Signals Bureau (NSB) has been empowered with new tracking technology to use the IP address of every gadget to find who is behind every message.
“The National Signals Bureau now has the technology to use your IP number and find you wherever you are.
“So I’m sending a signal to Ghanaians that we can find you, you those (engaged in) hate speech and things. We’ll use your IP number, we’ll trace you. And when we trace you, we’ll deal with you under the criminal code for inciting violence and disturbance of the peace,” he warned.
President Mahama gave this warning at the Presidency in Accra on Wednesday night when he engaged the media.
The engagement was for the President to bring Ghanaians to speed on what his government has been doing since assuming the reins of power in January this year.
Mr Mahama said the Bureau had been given the full authority to track down people who preach hate on the various social media platforms and sanction them in line with the criminal code.
He said social media, with its widespread usage, has the potential to fuel ethnic conflicts and had been behind igniting recent conflicts in Bawku and the Gonja areas.
The President decried the seeming lack of regulation in the use of the social media space and said government would watch the space and crackdown on those who abuse it.
On security in the Savannah Region following a clash between Gonjas and Brifos in the Sawla-Tuna-Kalba and Bole areas, President Mahama called for ceasefire to allow for development.
The conflict, which the President said was over “a small piece of land the size of a container kiosk,” has left at least 30 people dead and hundreds displaced.
As a son of the area himself, President Mahama said he had personally been “pulling the strings” behind the scenes to ensure the peace that existed between the two groups over a century was restored.
“I’ve sent a delegation to the Yagbonwura to prevent him from leaving Damango to Gbiniyiri, which would have escalated the conflict and he listened to me as a father…and that has lessened the tension,” he disclosed.
Describing the violence as most unfortunate, President Mahama said a mediation team had been put in place to among other things, reconcile the factions, and “perform purification rites to cleanse the land of any blood that has been spilled”.
“We need peace to develop. Our common enemy is poverty and not each other. Savannah is one of the poorest regions in the country, and so we must rather be fighting poverty than fighting each other,” he appealed to the factions.
BY JULIUS YAO PETETSI
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