On Thursday November 9, Talk Show host Abraham Godsent Wheon of Freedom FM shared short video of students celebrating the visit of Finance and Development Planning Minister Samuel D. Tweah, chanting support for the ruling Coalition for Democratic Change.
Wheon claimed that the video was from a scene during the recent visit of Minister Tweah to the G.W Gibson High School located on the Capitol By-Pass.
The Claim
He posted: “…Let me bring your the real GW Gibson video that the reckless opposition don’t want you to see. Tweh da man.”
Wheon’s post was in response to reports that Minister Tweah was taunted by students of the G.W Gibson High School.
A short video clip of students ranting at the vehicle of Finance and Development Planning had surfaced on November 8 and was making rounds on social media with poster claiming that the incident occurred at G.W. Gibson High School.
Rating Justification
To fact check whether the video shared on Facebook by Journalist Wion was from Minister Tweah’s visit to G. W Gibson, we obtained and analyzed the full video recording of the Minister’s visit to G. W. Gibson High School and also reviewed the video of Minister Tweah’s visit to the William V.S Tubman High School.
In the first video, which is about 43 minutes long, we verified that it was recorded at 10am on November 8, 2023 during Minister Tweah’s visit to the William V.S Tubman High School on 12th street.
In this video, Minister Tweah is seen walking with a crowd of students chanting pro-government campaign songs. He can also later be seen talking to students in the 10th grade classroom where he said was a classroom used for 12 graders when he attended the school.
In this video Mr. Tweah is also seen in the Tubman High auditorium. The determine that the auditorium is the Tubman High School’s, we analyzed the video by looking at the features of the venue. On the wall of the stage, an inscription reads, “Readers are learners”. This inscription is not written on the wall of the G.W Gibson High School and therefore the video could not have been recorded at the G.W Gibson visit of Minister Tweah. This authenticates that the video was recorded in the auditorium of the Tubman High and not G.W Gibison’s auditorium.
We also obtained the second video from an online TV about Minister Tweah’s visit to the G. W Gibson High School on the same day of November 8. In this video, Mr. Tweah addressed the students at the G. W. Gibson High school outside the auditorium of the school.
Mr. Tweah can be seen in the video speak outside the school auditorium to a crowd of students.
Conclusion
Therefore, we conclude that the video shared by Talk show host Abraham Wion showing students supporting Minister Tweah during his visit to ther school was not recorded at the G.W Gibson High School but rather the Tubman High School on 12th Strett.
This report was developed with the support of Internews through the USAID Media Activity project. The funder has no say in the editorial decision leading to the production of this content.