Captain Edmund Kojo Koda
Captain Edmund Kojo Koda (rtd), the security aide to President Akufo-Addo, has filed a GH¢5 million defamation suit against former Minister of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation, Prof. Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng, over allegations regarding illegal mining (galamsey) made against him.
The suit, filed before an Accra High court, was a result of Prof. Frimpong-Boateng’s failure to apologise for the words authored about the plaintiff in his report when he chaired the erstwhile Inter-Ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining (IMCIM) as demanded by Capt. (rtd) Koda’s lawyers last month.
Dr. Frimpong-Boateng, who chaired the erstwhile IMCIM, has authored a report in which he accused some New Patriotic Party (NPP) officials of allegedly hindering the fight against illegal mining. One of the names mentioned in the report was Capt. (rtd) Koda.
“Frantic telephone calls were received from Capt. Koda of the Presidential Security detail, who asked for the excavators to be released. He informed the taskforce that the owner of the concessions, Hon George Kwame Aboagye, the MP for Asene-Akroso is his brother …,” part of the report read.
It further added that “…I was expecting people such as … Capt. Koda and others like them, who knew the President better and certainly had his interests and success at heart, to support the fight against illegal mining …”
Capt. (rtd) Koda, in his suit filed by Akwasi Boamah of Akufo-Addo, Prempeh & Co., avers that the words in their natural and ordinary meaning were understood to mean the plaintiff is a saboteur of the President’s initiative to fight illegal mining.
It said the words were also understood to mean Capt. (rtd) Koda is disloyal to the President, is against the government’s fight against illegal mining, and he is an obstruction to the fight against illegal mining.
The suit further avers that the words complained of means the plaintiff acts with impunity without recourse to law and authority, obstructs the discharge of justice and is unpatriotic.
“Plaintiff says that the words complained of are roundly false and a figment of the Defendants’ malicious imagination and were calculated solely to disparage him and bring his name into opprobrium,” the suit argues.
The suit says contrary to Prof. Frimpong-Boateng’s defamatory claims, Capt. (rtd) Koda has always supported the President’s effort in combating illegal mining, and in one of such instances, sent the defendant a private message on May 16, 2019, to notify and provide the defendant with all the details of the perpetrators of some illegal mining activity that was ongoing at Old Ayaase, Adansi, in the Fomena Constituency, of which the Defendant acknowledged receipt of the said information.
“Plaintiff avers further that apart from the above, the Plaintiff has effectively and efficiently used his good office to make other interventions to curb the illegal mining menace which is unbeknownst to the Defendant,” it added.
Capt. (rtd) Koda is, therefore, seeking that GH¢5 million be awarded against Prof. Frimpong-Boateng, as the damage caused to his reputation by the report and its subsequent publication.
He is also seeking an apology and retraction of the statements complained of and an order directed at the defendant to cause to be removed from the said report and on all electronic platforms and archives records of the impugned publication against plaintiff.
Again, he wants a perpetual injunction restraining Prof. Frimpong-Boateng “whether by himself, his servants, agents or assigns from repeating and/or writing similar or other malicious statements against the Plaintiff in any form or medium,” as well as cost inclusive of legal fees.
BY Gibril Abdul Razak