Ghanaian journalist Anas Aremeyaw Anas (pictured left), who has spent his successful career keeping his true identity a secret, finally removed his bead mask during a recent interview. However, what was under the mask appeared to be yet another mask.
Anas has garnered worldwide attention for his courageous and unique approach to journalism. In order to rout out corruption from its core, Anas takes on a variety of identities in order to expose offenders to the public.
As Face2Face Africa previously reported:
Anas has taken journalism to an entirely new level with his innovative approach to breaking important stories.
In order to expose corruption, which he says is holding Africa back, Anas disguises himself for the stories and has been effective in taking down nearly all of his subjects.
To date, Anas’ real identity remains a secret, lending him an anonymity that allows him access in to the nation’s biggest scandals.
In his career, Anas has posed as the Father of a disabled child in order to expose how a particular herbalist was providing poison to parents who had unwanted children.
Just when the herbalist and his team were about to administer the poison to “his child,” which was actually a prosthetic baby he built over a number of months, Anas had the police arrest them.
His most recent expose — and biggest scandal — involves his documentary “Ghana in the Eyes of God, Epic of Injustice,” which brazenly shows seven High Court judges and 22 lower court judges demanding bribes of civilians on video.
The explosive film, which was being viewed throughout Kumasi and Accra until an accused judge asked for the viewings to be stopped, has triggered the suspensions of all the judges and sent the highest echelons of Ghana’s judiciary system reeling.
In his interview, Anas says that Africa’s Achilles’ heel is corruption at the judiciary level.
“You see, judges are like gods in the eyes of men. They are our last resort. If anything happens, everyone’s last resort is the courts. And I have done a lot of investigation across the African continent.
“And I think that the problems people in Africa are suffering from is a result from the problems we have with our judiciary, and if we will be courageous enough to stand toe-to-toe to investigate some of these issues in our judiciary, I’m sure that Africans can only have a better life,” he said.
Anas also explained that all of the work he does is for the people, saying, “My commitment as a Ghanaian, first, is to the constitution. My second commitment — perhaps my most important commitment — is to the people of Ghana.
“And the work I did is for the people of Ghana.”
At the end of the interview, Anas finally agrees to remove his mask. In perfect Anas style, though, removing one mask appears to make way for another.