Captain Smart
A customs officer, Clement Agyeman, has filed a GHȼ100 million defamation lawsuit against Media General, owners of Onua TV and its morning show host, Blessed Godsbrain Smart, popularly called Captain Smart.
According to the plaintiff, Captain Smart had used Onua TV to allegedly label him a thief.
The plaintiff, a former national athlete, who is currently a Revenue Assistant Grade 3 officer of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), claims that the defendants on two consecutive days – that is December 15 and 16, 2021, in utter disregard for his reputation and rights, published or caused to be published various words that are “completely false and highly defamatory” of him on Onua TV and Onua 95.1 FM.
According to the plaintiff, this happened on their programme dubbed ‘Onua Maakye’ with Captain Smart, in which the alleged defamatory words were streamed on other media outlets, such as YouTube, Facebook, and Pendream TV among others.
Defamation Particulars
In a statement of claims, Mr. Agyeman said Captain Smart among others told his audience he (Agyeman) had threatened to initiate a curse in Germany on phone.
“You are ‘Whatsapping’ curse. Because you know you have not done the right thing, yesterday you were complaining that ‘Captain, you have made my family members to be calling me. They are calling me and wondering what sort of life I am living at the harbor. Today, you will hear more sounds. Thief…!! So, what you did as an officer, is it right?” the plaintiff stated in his claim.
He said his friends and family members, who watched and listened into the Onua Maakye programme and heard his name mentioned and associated with such disparaging and defamatory words, started calling him.
He noted that he called the defendants to register his protest and innocence in the matter being alleged, but his protestations did not deter Captain Smart, who is the first defendant, from making further unsavoury and defamatory statements against his person.
He pointed out that Captain Smart further made defamatory statements against him in the Twi language which is fully transcribed and translated in English as follows:
“What I find very appalling is that ‘oh, give me Thousand, I will ensure that the duty you have to pay will be reduced. Give me another thousand, the duty will be reduced. You make it three thousand and the duty payable for your goods will be reduced to the barest minimum’; you succeeded in extorting GHȼ 30 million and still managed to steal the goods,” the plaintiff averred.
He claimed that on the same programme, the 1st defendant made further statements about him with the intention to tarnish his image before the right-thinking members of society by calling him a sick person.
The customs officer stated that the derogatory and defamatory statements were made by Captain Smart with the concurrence of his employer, Media General, which is the second defendant in the suit.
He asserted that the defendant made all the defamatory statements with dramatisation for effect, which were meant to put him in the focus of the public for its agenda.
The plaintiff averred that he is a former national athlete, who by dint of hard work, was chosen to, and represented Ghana in the 100 and 200-meter events at the Commonwealth Games held in Melbourne, Australia, in 2006.
According to him, he is a Christian of the Methodist faith and worships at the St. Paul’s Methodist Church, Tema, Community 1, and is married and blessed with four children, adding that he is a family man with nuclear and extended families, whose members as a whole look up to him.
The plaintiff said by virtue of his profession and the fact that he was a national athlete; he is well-liked, known and respected by so many people within Ghana and outside, intimating that his name, Clement Agyeman, evokes certain nostalgia, especially within the sporting community both in Ghana and abroad.
The plaintiff claimed that his credentials as described above made him to be celebrated in Ghana and internationally, when he decided to hang his spikes as a national athlete, culminating in the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), granting him an interview.
The plaintiff stated that for the number of years that he has worked with the Ghana Revenue Authority, Customs Division, and as a national athlete who has participated in a number of athletics competitions for Ghana, his honesty, integrity, reputation, diligence and good faith have never been in doubt.
The plaintiff asserted that the publication by the defendants had created a crisis in his matrimonial home, with his wife, who had been his pillar of support in life, now threatening to leave him, as she can no longer stand the public ridicule.
The plaintiff added that he is currently the subject of investigations at work, and is being called now and again by his superiors to answer to the allegations made by Captain Smart on national television, with his employment being in danger of termination.
The plaintiff said due to the publication by the defendants, the majority of his colleagues at work as well as the public, have shunned his company, with his children becoming targets for bullies in school.
By Ernest Kofi Adu