Rev. Kusi Boateng sues Okudzeto Ablakwa for defamation - Report

Rev Kusi Boateng, member and Secretary to the Board of Trustees of the National Cathedral has sued the Member of Parliament for North Tongu, for defamation.

Accra-based Joy News reported late Friday (February 3) that the Plaintiff [Rev Kusi Boateng] in his statement of claim says the lawmaker, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, was engaged in actions he deemed “not only misleading but calculated to injure his reputation.”

The main issue is of Ablakwa's claims that the plaintiff's company JNS Talent Centre benefitted from illegal fund transfers from the National Cathedral Secretariat for no work done.

“The Plaintiff states that the statement published were defamatory and were authored with malice and with the sole intent of reducing him in the estimation of all right-thinking members of society as a corrupt, greedy, morally reprehensible and dishonest Reverend Minister of the Gospel,” portions of the writ indicated.

According to Rev Kusi Boateng, misleading as the claims are, they have enjoyed wide readership and engagement on social media platforms where the MP routinely makes his publications.

He said, the MP's actions are thus: “calculated to injure the reputation of the plaintiff in the minds of his family members, his congregation, fellow ministers of the gospel (locally and internationally), well-meaning members of the society, home and abroad."

The writ made the following demands:

a. A declaration that the statements made by the Defendant are defamatory;

b. An order directed at the Defendant to publish on the same platform that he published the defamatory words as well as a full page of the Daily Graphic Newspaper, on six consecutive occasions over a 6 month period, an unqualified retraction and an apology;

c. An order for perpetual injunction restraining the Defendant, his agents, assigns and servants from further publishing any defamatory words against the Plaintiff;

d. General Damages for defamation;

e. Costs; and

f. Any other order(s) as this Honourable Court may deem fit.