When Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia formally announced his intention to run for president, the hashtag Bawuliar popped up in Ghana’s Twitter trends. It was not the first time #Bawuliar had trended. As of March 2023, over 1,110 Twitter users had used #Bawuliar and created 24 million impressions and reached over 5.69 million people. The hashtag spiked on April 8, April 28 and later on May 2 when news broke that Dr. Bawumia declared his intention to run for president in a meeting with the majority caucus in parliament.
We identified a cell of 28 Twitter accounts that amplified the #Bawuliar campaign on Twitter using the copy-paste technique, a coordinated campaign that was intended to discredit Ghana’s Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia by highlighting various contradictions and inconsistencies in his pronouncements, and digging up his failed promises. The campaign ultimately sought to brand Dr. Bawumia as a liar.
Why #Bawuliar?
Bawuliar was first mentioned by Twitter account with username @NotJustPascal on 18th June 2016. However, hashtag was used for the first time on 7th September 2016 in @ishmaelseidu1’s reply to Gabby Otchere-Darko’s tweet about whether the government was trying to muzzle Dr. Bawumia, who was by then, running mate to the New Patriotic Party’s presidential candidate, Nana Akufo-Addo.
Many users on social media who cannot be identified as belonging to a political party have also expressed their disappointment in the Vice President who convinced Ghanaians before the 2016 elections that he will competently handle the economic affairs of the country.
Dr. Bawumia promised to halt the depreciation of the cedi and even famously declared that “we have arrested the cedi and given the key to the IGP”. But Ghana’s exchange rate has performed rather poorly and was ranked as the world’s worst-performing currency in 2022. The Vice President once indicated he does not believe that mobile money transactions should be taxed but in 2022, his government introduced mobile money taxes.
Many of these incidents have cast doubts on the credibility of his government. The NPP government promised never to seek help from the International Monetary Fund but it made a U-turn and secured a $3 billion loan.
An Economist and Governance Expert, Dr Ishmael Yamson recently questioned the credibility of the NPP government in saying, “The government is faced with credibility crisis otherwise, why are investors refusing to lend to Ghana? Because they know we cannot pay”.
Although the dollar has seen some stability in recent months, the high inflation rate of over 50 percent and fuel prices are still a burden on the ordinary Ghanaian.
As a result of this, there has been a barrage of attacks on the integrity and credibility of the vice president following the government’s inability to provide concrete interventions in dealing with the economic challenges. Many have been wondering why Vice President Dr. Bawumia who eloquently diagnosed the economic challenges affecting the country when he was in opposition is currently unable to provide solutions to the quagmire his administration is faced with. Criticisms which started as an organic onslaught on Dr. Bawumia’s credibility on the streets and in the mass media, gained traction in social media circles with the hashtag #Bawuliar.
During the investigation, we observed that almost every comment the Vice President made about the economy was met with a spike in #Bawuliar tweets. This investigation looks into whether the trend of #Bawuliar is organic or an attempt orchestrated by political opponents to cast a slur on the credibility of Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia?
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