Appolonia kingmaker, 2 others sued

The Registrar of the Greater Accra Regional House of Chiefs, Mr. Harry Anthony Attipoe, has taken legal action against one of the kingmakers of Appolonia, Nii Iddrisu Mansro, a reporter at Accra-based Citi FM, Mr. Elvis Washington Agyinkuma, and Omni Media, owners of Citi FM, demanding an amount of GHC5 million as damages for libel.

The Registrar, who, according the statement of claim, has oversight responsibility of the Kpone Traditional Council (KTC), is also demanding an order of perpetual injunction to restrain the defendants, their servants, and agents from further publication of the said words, similar, or any words of the like effect.

The plaintiff hit the legal ground running when the Citi FM reporter, who is the 2nd Defendant in the case, after he had mischievously interviewed some non-existent chiefs, came out with a jerky article, suggesting that the rulers of Kpone and Appllonia were excited about the recent transfer of the Registrar.

In the article, Mr. Attipoe was accused of being the brain behind the woes of the people in the Traditional Area, and this was expressly captured in “…ever since he was transferred to the Greater Accra Region as Registrar, has created more harm than good to us… Attipoe has really created serious confusion and messed up our lands, so now that he has been transferred, we thank God the new Registrar coming will come and clean the mess and put things in order.”

Described as a self-styled Regent, Nii Mansro granted an interview to Mr. Washington on the March, 21, this year. Titled ‘Ga Chiefs Laud Transfer of Regional House of Chiefs Registrar’, the article was published by the 3rd Defendant, Omni Media, on its website, which the plaintiff said contained defamatory words.

While portions of the letter accused the plaintiff of corruption, others linked him to indiscriminate sale of Kpone stool lands. In the article, Nii Mansro alleged that: “…Mr. Harry Attipoe has been involved in giving lands to developers, whereas he (Attipoe) is not an indigene. We have evidence of land receipts with us, where Mr. Harry Attipoe has signed, with regards to the sale of Kpone land, whereas he has no right to do so.”

In the course of celebrating the decision to transfer of Mr. Attipoe, the 1st Defendant was quoted to have said: “Nii Mansro said the decision to transfer Mr. Attipoe is a very good one worth commending, adding that Mr. Attipoe’s alleged involvement in [a] series of land matters has created tension within the Greater Accra Region.”

Again, the article contained: “Citing the Appollonia chieftaincy dispute as an example, Nii Mansro said ‘Attipoe, despite a case pending in court against the illegal enstoolment of one Nii Amobi, went ahead to ensure he was illegally gazetted’,” as some of the damning allegations.

But a publication in the Thursday March 24, 2016 publication of The Chronicle downplayed the allegations contained in the article, as written by the 2nd Defendant. The Chronicle report revealed that some chiefs in the Kpone Traditional Area, when contacted by the paper’s reporter, said the earlier report was baseless and unfounded.

In line with that confession, counsel for the plaintiff, A. Ossei Aidooh & Co., in the statement of claim said the words contained in the article could be contextualised naturally and ordinarily as proposing that “The plaintiff is incompetent as the Regional Registrar, and is directly involved in chieftaincy and land matters in the region; the plaintiff, by his conduct, is undermining the development of the region, and his acts have harmed the region; the plaintiff is selling lands in the Kpone Traditional Area to developers for his personal benefit.”

The words, in the eyes of the lawyers, also suggested that “The plaintiff, on his own, ensures that persons who have illegally [been] installed as chiefs are gazetted; the plaintiff’s conduct has immensely contributed to the chieftaincy feud in the Kpone Traditional Area, much to the detriment of the people”, and also, that “the plaintiff is a dishonest and [a] selfish person who has misappropriated proceeds from the sale of the lands in Kpone.”

For all these, the plaintiff, who has argued that the article has circulated worldwide, is convinced that his “credit and reputation both personal and public has been seriously ignored and damaged, and has been brought into public scandal, ridicule, odium and contempt,” stressing that the words were written and published out of malevolence and spite towards him.