Anas’ Exposé - Caregivers arm themselves

Some shame-faced caregivers at the Osu Children’s Home where ace undercover reporter, Anas Aremeyaw Anas, recently exposed untold rot being perpetrated, are arming themselves with machetes, cutlass and those who cannot physically assault are also shaping their foul mouths to attack the investigator for bringing their ill treatment of the children at the orphanage to the lime light, the New Crusading Guide newspaper intelligence has picked up.

An audio tape in the possession of this paper reveals how the caregivers at the orphanage rained insults on Anas when a colleague reporter from Adom FM, a private radio station in Accra, Kofi Adoma visited the Home on one of his normal journalistic duties.

From the tape, the women were heard raining curses on Anas for his exposé saying, “God will punish that Anas. Is it only here that ill act goes on? Tell him to go to the other orphanages and he will see. When he came here as Rev. Abednego we thought he was a genuine person, not knowing he had diabolic intentions. He should come here again, and he will see. We will beat him till he drops dead.” Reports gathered from the Home indicate that since the story on the orphanage hit the newsstands, not a day passes without the caregivers cursing Anas. “He is an idiot, very stupid; God will punish him hundred times, Anas so what, Anas my foot!” one voice captured believed to be that of a female screamed.

This is the second time Anas has come under withering attack from workers and officials at the orphanage.The first one occurred when Mr. Stephen Adongo, Director of the Department of Social Welfare, accused him of skewing the videos from the orphanage to create only the negative impressions of the Home, when the E.T. Mensah Committee started public hearings to ascertain the truth or otherwise of the scandal.

It will be recalled that the Honorable Minister for Employment and Social Welfare, E.T. Mensah inaugurated an 11-member Committee of enquiry a couple of weeks ago to investigate allegations of child abuse at the Osu Children’s Home made bare by a documentary put out by Anas Aremeyaw Anas. The documentary was extensively shown on the various television networks in Ghana and widely written on by the print and electronic media, generating various reactions and sentiments from the general public, ranging from serious criticism, condemnation and cries of “crucify them!” (referring to the handlers of the orphans).

The mandate of the Committee were among other things, reviewing the full text of the video footage, examining the structure of the Osu Children’s Home, looking into the cases of child neglect and abuse and allegations of theft of donated items to the home, investigation allegations of sodomy and making appropriate recommendations to improve general management and ways to prevent any such re-occurrences in future.

Meanwhile, as at the time of filing this story, Anas was on his way to the Cantonments Police Station to lodge an official complaint about the threat.He however, said he would not be deterred by such threats to shirk his responsibility of bringing to the fore any of such corrupt practices and acts of human rights abuses in society. He said, “This is not the first time I’m receiving or hearing such threats. I am reporting it because it has to be put on record but such threats will never deter me from doing my work.”