Covid-19: WHO Director has NOT Praised John Mahama

A video has emerged on social media suggesting that the Director-General of the World Health Organisation (WHO), Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has commended the former President of Ghana, John Dramani Mahama, for his contribution in building infrastructure in Ghana’s health sector.

The video further suggests that other world leaders including Paul Kagame, the President of Rwanda, have commended the former President of Ghana for his good works in Africa.

The social media video specifically refers to a supposed tweet by Dr Ghebreyesus which praised the former president for investing in building hospitals that will help fight the novel Coronavirus (Covid-19) in Ghana.

“Thank you @JDMahama for investing massively into building of hospitals in #Ghana, this will help us contain and fight #COVID-19 in the country rapidly. You deserve praise. #Coronavirus,” the supposed tweet said.

The video also indicates that President Kagame has tweeted: “@JDMahama Your effort has taught us much and we appreciate you, #Africa is blessed having you. This will go a long way to bless Africa” in praise former president John Mahama.

The Media Foundation for West Africa’s fact-checking team has verified the claims by the video and concludes they are completely false.

The team checked the official twitter handle of Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) to verify the supposed tweet attributed to him but found no such tweet from his account. Also, the official twitter handle of President Paul Kagame (@PaulKagame) does not have any such tweet attributed to him.

Further, the team conducted other checks online, including making a reverse image search of the tweets photos, to verify if the content of the said tweets has been published in any credible media outlet that perhaps would give credence to the tweets. It emerged there are no traces of the tweets or the supposed quotes attributed to Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and Paul Kagame online.