{"id":200015,"date":"2014-06-27T14:30:29","date_gmt":"2014-06-27T14:30:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ghana-mma.com\/wontumi-faces-ibrahim-over-defamation\/"},"modified":"2014-06-27T14:30:29","modified_gmt":"2014-06-27T14:30:29","slug":"wontumi-faces-ibrahim-over-defamation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2014\/06\/27\/wontumi-faces-ibrahim-over-defamation\/","title":{"rendered":"Wontumi Faces Ibrahim Over Defamation"},"content":{"rendered":"

New Patriotic Party (NPP) Ashanti Regional Chairman, Bernard Antwi-Boasiako aka Chairman Wontumi, has entered conditional appearance in the case in which Ibrahim Mahama, younger brother of President John Dramani Mahama, is suing him for defamation.<\/p>\n

Mr. Mahama had to file a substituted service in order to locate Chairman Wontumi because the plaintiff claimed the NPP guru could not be traced.<\/p>\n

The \u2018Notice of entry of conditional appearance\u2019 was filed yesterday by Chairman Wontumi\u2019s solicitors, Faibille & Faibille, Constance Chambers, at Asylum Down in Accra.<\/p>\n

Mr. Mahama, through his solicitors, Gaisie Zwennes Hughes & Co, wants GH\u00a22 million damages to be awarded against Chairman Wontumi for defamatory statements he allegedly made against the President\u2019s brother.<\/p>\n

According to the plaintiff, Chairman Wontumi had allegedly said among other things that \u201cPresident Mahama and his brother Ibrahim have loaded all the money into their pockets. Each and every day they increase petrol prices and then you and I, the downtrodden, suffer to pay for the increases \u2013 they keep the monies in their pockets, and use them to buy planes \u2013 aeroplanes \u2013 in which they fly.\u201d<\/p>\n

The plaintiff further claimed, \u201cEach week, President Mahama and his brother Ibrahim travel to South Africa. You, my brother, the monies President Mahama has given to his brother, have you got any? Does someone pay your children\u2019s school fees?\u201d<\/p>\n

He also wants an order directed at Chairman Wontumi to publish a full unqualified apology to him and a retraction of the statements made in all the newspapers in which the statements were repeated by their publications.<\/p>\n

In his statement of claim, the plaintiff averred that the words spoken of by the defendant are understood to mean that he (Ibrahim) is a thief and a dishonest man with criminal tendencies.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat the plaintiff is somehow engaged in a secretly orchestrated enterprise of stealing those monies which happened to be public funds, having been realised from the citizenry of Ghana by the Head of the government of Ghana under a false pretext,\u201d the statement indicated.<\/p>\n

The plaintiff further averred that the defamatory statements were made in a manner that was calculated to cause \u201cmaximum damage and hurt to the plaintiff\u2019s reputation by causing him to be unanimously held in contempt and disdain throughout the nation.<\/p>\n

\u201cIndeed, the defendant concluded his defamatory statement by letting out a clarion call for a people\u2019s uprising to \u2018replicate what happened in Tunisia\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ibrahim said, \u201cThe defamatory statements were made maliciously by the defendant, who made the statements recklessly and\/or not caring whether they were true or false. The defamatory statements were made in a manner that damaged the plaintiff\u2019s reputation in the manner of his trade and business as an honest businessman who has achieved success by dint of his own hard work.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added, \u201cDespite being given a fair and more than ample opportunity to retract and apologise to the plaintiff for the defamatory statements made, as requested in the plaintiff\u2019s lawyer\u2019s letter dated 11th April 2014, the defendant refused to so do, and treated the request with contempt.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New Patriotic Party (NPP) Ashanti Regional Chairman, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-200015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200015"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200015\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}