A human rights lawyer, Maurice Ampaw has patted the back of the national security operatives who picked up the manager of Shatta Wale, Lawrence Nana Asiamah Hanson, popularly known as Bulldog.

He said Bulldog should be punished severely for issuing a threat to President Akufo-Addo for not paying customers of the defunct gold dealership firm, Menzgold.

According to the lawyer, the artiste manager committed 3 in 1 crime, that is, threatening the president, blackmailing the president to pay Menzgold customers, and committing a treasonable offence by making those declarations on air.

Maurice Ampaw told GhanaWeb that the ‘offensive’ words used by Bulldog could intimate that President Akufo-Addo is daft.

Commenting on the issue with GhanaWeb, the private legal practitioner said, “You don’t express freedom of expression by insulting and attacking a president. Because your freedom to express is subject to the rights of others and it’s subject to crime of public interest and national security. Therefore, going all out to threaten the President by saying that if the President fails to pay Menzgold customers then he will not live to fulfill his term of office is committing three crimes in one. Threatening of the president, blackmailing the president to pay Menzgold customers, committing treasonable offence because by which means are you going to ensure that the president does not finish his term of office? It’s by overthrowing the president?"

“Also, you are blackmailing the president because you are telling the president that he is very stupid so it’s equal to somebody who has a nude picture of a girl and says that if you don’t give me money I will publish your nude picture…I think he should be dealt with," he stated.

Bulldog was arrested on Monday, January 11, 2021, for saying on a broadcast media that President Akufo-Addo will not complete his four-year term in office if aggrieved customers of Menzgold do not get back their locked-up funds.

Making his submission on UTV’s United Showbiz on Saturday, January 9, 2021, he said, “We’ll get our monies back else Nana Addo will run; he won’t finish his 4 years. I’m telling you. He won’t finish his 4 years.”

But the artiste manager in a separate interview on Okay FM Monday said he did not threaten the President and that his comments were just to hammer on the need for President Akufo-Addo to pay Menzgold customers.