By Kwame Osei, Senior Investigative Correspondent |Ghanaian Watch
Damongo, Ghana—The Cracked Earth Speaks
Red dust devils swirl across the savannah as Fatima Abudu, 28, kneels beside a row of withered maize stalks. Just six months ago, she uprooted her entire crop after neighbors warned that a new solar farm near Larabanga was “stealing the rain.” Now, she touches the parched soil with regret.
*“They showed us videos of dead cows near solar panels in Burkina Faso,”* Fatima recalls, her voice frayed by harmattan winds. *“We believed the sun machines were witchcraft. So I destroyed my field—my children’s food for a year.”*
Her story mirrors a crisis exploding across Northern Ghana: *climate disinformation weaponizing desperation.* As temperatures hit 43°C (109°F)—1.5 times faster than the global average*—myths like *“Fulani herders poison rivers to cause droughts”* and *“tree planting invites devil worship”* have ignited violence, displaced thousands, and paralyzed climate adaptation .
The Truth Hubs: Gonja’s Firewall Against Lies
Enter “Truth Hubs”—a radical network fusing indigenous knowledge with digital tools. Spearheaded by the African Liberators Economic Institute (ALEI), these village squares-turned-war rooms are fighting back:
“*Climate lies aren’t just misinformation—they’re weapons deepening poverty and violence*,” declares Isaac Nsiah Foster, his voice cutting through the hum of Damongo’s midday heat. As Operations Director overseeing human rights and climate adaptation for ALEI, Foster has witnessed firsthand how false narratives—like “*solar panels steal rain*” or “*Fulani herders poison wells*”—exploit desperation in Ghana’s Savannah. “*When Fatima Abudu destroyed her crops believing solar farms caused drought, she lost $1,200 overnight—her children’s food security for a year. Multiply that by thousands, and you see why disinformation fuels our $3.2B farm revenue loss*.” Foster’s team traced 68% of recent farmer-herder clashes to viral falsehoods, many amplified by foreign actors profiting from instability .
For Foster, Truth Hubs represent a radical fusion of ancestral wisdom and digital defiance. “*We’re building intellectual firewalls,*” he states, gesturing to elders scanning AI-generated conflict heatmaps in Bole. “*Chief Kpembewura’s 200-year-old drought routes now guide our GIS warnings. Youth ‘Truth Scouts’ use TikTok to debunk mining myths with EPA soil data—turning the propagandists’ tools against them.*” When asked about impact, Foster cites hard numbers: “*After launching Mythbuster Whatsapp Group with 50 members in Gonja villages, trust in indigenous climate solutions jumped 75%. That’s not theory—it’s women like Amina Issaka regenerating 400 hectares of degraded land using dawadawa trees, despite ‘chainsaw lobby’ death threats*” .
Foster frames Truth Hubs as reparations in action. “*Climate disinformation is neo-colonialism wearing new masks,*” he asserts. “*It steals futures twice: first by erasing traditional knowledge, then by recruiting unemployed youth into extremism. Our Hubs return agency—training Fulani elders as radio debunkers, turning former galamsey miners like Alhassan into data journalists.*”
The Elders’ Archive
Under a baobab tree in Chereponi, Chief Kpembewura Abubakari II unfolds a 200-year-old goatskin map showing ancestral drought routes. His hands trace routes to dormant wells now buried beneath commercial farms.
*“Our grandfathers survived the Great Dry of 1928 by reading spiderwebs and bird migrations,”* he states. *“Science calls it ‘Traditional Ecological Knowledge.’ We call it listening to the land.”*
ALEI has documented *40 such oral histories* across Gonja communities—from Bole to Daboya—transforming them into Twi and Gonja-language.
These audio guides dismantle lies like the solar farm rumors using side-by-side comparisons: satellite rainfall data versus social media hoaxes .
*The Youth’s Digital Frontline*
In Buipe, 19-year-old former galamsey miner Alhassan Mohammed scrolls through a Truth Hub tablet, showing farmers time-lapse videos of regenerated forests.
*“We train as ‘Truth Scouts,’”* he explains. *“When TikTok claims floods are divine punishment, we counter with EPA flood maps showing how deforestation upstream causes disasters.”*
A shocking *68% of farmer-herder clashes* here are ignited by such disinformation—a figure verified by ALEI’s AI sentiment analysis of 15,000 social media posts .
The Human Toll: When Lies Kill
*“Villagers blocked an ambulance carrying a pregnant woman, shouting ‘Hospitals harvest rainwater for foreign rituals!’* They believed cholera was cured by frog sacrifices, not IV fluids.
The woman, Fati Braimah, 32, died en route. Her sister now leads Truth Hub workshops displaying Ministry of Health data on oral rehydration therapy—countering “traditional healers” who profit from cholera panic.
*“Disinformation isn’t just noise here,”* declares UNDP climate security expert Isidore Agbokou. *“It’s a death industry. Every false drought ‘cure’ sold by charlatans erodes trust in real solutions.”*
Journalism in the Crosshairs
At a Damongo radio station, producer Salifu Abdullah plays a death threat left on his voicemail: *“Stop defending solar devils or we burn your studio.”*
His crime? A Truth Hub investigation foiled attempt on how a Nigerian “pastor” allegedly sold $10 “drought-repelling amulets” to close to 150 farmers—while secretly leasing their lands to a mining syndicate.
*“We’re fighting ghost enemies,”* Abdullah says, adjusting his bulletproof vest. *“The disinformation peddlers use burner phones and encrypted apps. But our Truth Scouts have infiltrated 17 WhatsApp groups spreading climate lies.”*
ALEI partnered with the *Society of Journalists Ghana to train 15 reporters in conflict-sensitive verification—a skill desperately needed when reporting can trigger violence . Trainees learn encrypted sourcing from DW Akademie’s Sheila Mysorekar: “No story is worth your life”* .
The Whatsapp Group Revolution
Scene: Daboya Salt Flats
Women winnowing salt crystals pause as community organizer Amina Issaka opens a Truth Hub Whatsapp Group. :
– *MYTH:* *“Solar panels absorb rain clouds”* (sharing a viral photo of dead cows—later debunked as a 2019 Australian bushfire victim).
– **FACT:* *“Solar farms increase ground moisture for crops”* (with NASA data showing vegetation density rising 22% near Ghana’s Lawra solar park).
*“We distilled complex science into pictures,”* says Amina. *“When an elder sees a satellite image proving trees increase* rainfall, it overrides years of ‘chainsaw lobby’ propaganda.”
The results? A *75% surge in adoption** of indigenous agroforestry techniques—like planting drought-resistant dawadawa trees—verified by University of Ghana surveys .
The Ripple Effect: From Gonja to the Sahel
ECOWAS recently replicated Truth Hubs in Northern Nigeria, where Boko Haram exploits similar climate myths. In Borno State, farmers now use Hausa-language flipbooks to counter rumors like *“vaccinated cows cause droughts.”*
*“Gonja proved local voices beat foreign disinformation,”* declares ECOWAS envoy Fatoumata Diallo. *“When a Fulani elder explains river management, his community listens more than to any UN report.”*
The Unfinished Battle
Back in Damongo, Fatima Abudu walks through her newly planted field of drought-resistant millet. She now leads a Truth Hub women’s group decoding weather apps.
*“They told us technology was witchcraft,”* she smiles, tapping a rain radar on her smartphone. *“But our grandmothers predicted storms by watching ants. This is just ants for the digital age.”*
Yet dangers persist. Three Truth Scouts faced knife attacks in Salaga last month,
*“Every lie we debunk saves lives,”* insists Chief Kpembewura, watching clouds gather over the savannah. *“But we’re racing against the next viral lie.”*