Former Deputy General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress, Koku Anyidoho has broken his silence over his GH¢10 million defamatory suit filed against an aide to former President John Dramani Mahama.
Mr Anyidoho on Thursday, January 28, 2021 filed a defamatory suit at the Tema High Court against Dzifa Gunu, for publishing a defamatory article about him on January 16, 2021 in a Facebook post.
Speaking on the suit for the first time, Mr Anyidoho in an interview with Okay FM monitored by GhanaWeb said, his decision to pursue the defendant was borne out of persistent attacks on him, one of which he thought was ridiculous and uncalled for.
These were accusations to the effect that, he was involved in the death of his 8-year-old daughter.
“On November 17, I sadly lost my 8-year-old daughter, I’ve not finished mourning her and in my brief moment of consolation, someone goes to write that I killed my own daughter for money rituals. Can you imagine?” he questioned.
According to him, his quest for legal redress is to clear his name in the sight of his remaining children who will be compelled to think their own father killed their sister for money as alleged by Dzifa Gunu.
Asked why as a member of the NDC, he did not use internal party structures to address the issue, Mr Anyidoho said the disrespect and deliberate attempt to taint his image by the aide to the former President has become too much for him to bear.
“This is not the first time, in December he wrote something about me that I didn’t mind. But consistently he has attacked my personality. I don’t know him from anywhere. I’ve seen him once or twice somewhere but he is not my friend, we don’t hail from the same town, he has not been to my house before and neither have I. But he has decided that he will continuously attack the personality of Koku Anyidoho,” he said.
The suit by Koku Anyidoho also states that the plaintiff, in the article he published on social media, alleged that he had made several attempts on the life of former President John Mahama which was untrue.
He avers that the defendant, by his careless and reckless claims, has lowered his reputation in the eyes of the public which has resulted in him suffering “great distress, embarrassment and damage to his reputation”.
In addition to the damages, Koku Anyidoho has asked the High Court to injunct the defendant from publishing further defamatory materials about him, he is also asking for a retraction and apology of the publication and an order for the defendant to pull down the publication from Facebook as well as other social media platforms and news portals that published it.
Listen to Koku Anyidoho below: