Claim: Over 70 million Ghana cards issued to Ghanaians
Source: Dr Mahamudu Bawumia
Verdict: MISLEADING
Researched by David Yovo-Ofori
A short video clip shared on X/ Twitter is being portrayed as showing Ghana’s Vice President and the Flagbearer of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Dr Mahamudu Bawumia claiming that the government has issued over 70 million Ghana cards to citizens.
The video which seems to have been cross-published from TikTok, comes with a text stamp that reads – “I have issued over 70 million Ghana cards as vice president – Dr Bawumia” and at the time of researching the claim, the clip had gathered more than 220,000 views, 2.7k likes, 292 retweets and 428 comments on X.
A screenshot of the post on X
Fact-Check
Further checks by GhanaFact show the video had been circulating on X/Twitter since November 22, 2023, and generated more than 17k interactions when it was first published on the platform – 16.8k views, 135 likes, 47 retweets and 51 comments.
A screenshot of the post published in November 2023
On TikTok where the widely circulated clip was sourced from, our investigations confirmed that TikTok account @darknesscease was the creator of the video which was first published on November 21, 2023.
A screengrab of the video first shared on TikTok
A subsequent online search by GhanaFact led the team to a much longer version of Dr Mahamudu Bawumia’s speech in Tamale, where he addressed teaming supporters following his victory in the party’s presidential primaries.
After carefully listening to the address shared by a YouTube channel, UpFront TV, on November 21, 2023, there was nowhere in the video that Dr Mahamudu Bawumia claimed over 70 million Ghana cards had been issued to Ghanaians.
“I have become Vice President, and I have not yet become president, but I have brought solutions to many of our problems. We did not have a unique identity. And so I championed the government’s policy of the Ghana Card. Today, we have issued over 17 million Ghana Cards,” Dr Mahamudu Bawumia said between minutes 2:10 – 2:36.
Furthermore, our checks from the National Identification Authority (NIA) – the agency in charge of issuing Ghana cards, show over 17 million Ghana cards have been issued to citizens.
A screenshot of NIA webpage detailing how many Ghana cards has been issued
Verdict
The claim attributed to Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia is misleading.
