The President of the Ghana Independent Broadcasters Association (GIBA) has described as “shocking”, the recent petrol bomb attack on the Class Media Group’s Labone headquarters in Accra by arsonists around 2 am on Thursday, April 25, 2024.
The media company’s CCTV cameras, captured four men on motorbikes fleeing the scene after hurling the fiery balls into the compound, shattering the glass barrier and door of the reception.
The motives of the attackers are not clear, but CMG has reported the incident to the police for an investigation.
Speaking to Kwame Dwomoh-Agyemang on the Class Morning Show on Friday, 26 April 2024, Cecil Thomas Sunkwa-Mills, said GIBA discussed the incident late Thursday night.
“It brings about the concern of security for radio and TV stations, especially at this time of the year and we believe that we should let the police see what exactly happened”, he noted.
He said: “It’s a bit difficult now to check exactly why somebody would want to throw Molotov cocktails at a TV station”, adding: “Thank God you have CCTV and picked up the footage of what happened”.
“I think it is good to wait to see exactly what the police also come up with because we don’t know the motive behind this attack and we’ve not seen this type of attack before and we don’t know why somebody would do this, so, we would have to see exactly why this attack happened and it just means that we would have to reiterate that for your station, it is important to have the adequate maximum security, especially at the point of entry, both physical and anything to stop a missile or something. It’s very important”, Mr Sunkwa-Mills added.
For now, he said GIBA does not want to speculate about the motive behind the attack or the people behind it.
“What we have not yet concluded on is exactly whether this attack was politically motivated or not, so, we are not quick yet to put the blame at the door of any particular person or that, so, that’s why I said we need to find out exactly what happened”, he said, noting: “We haven’t got any feedback that it was a direct reaction to some particular broadcast which was done by your station. We haven’t gotten that feedback and that’s why I said we want to find out a bit more about what was the motive behind this unless Class FM would have a bit more to tell us because we need to know exactly what may have caused this action”.
CCTV cameras from different angles have captured the arrival and getaway of the four hoodlums who threw Molotov cocktails into the compound of CMG, at Labone, Accra.
The incident occurred on Thursday dawn, around 2 am.
In the CCTV footage, two motorbikes with two men on each, pulled over in front of the media house, lit fiery balls and hurled them into CMG’s compound just before making their getaway.
The bombs shattered CMG’s newly installed glass doors and barrier at the reception area.
The police are continuing investigations into the attack but no arrests have been made yet.
