Bridget Otoo corrects Akufo-Addo’s lawyer, questions him

Broadcaster Bridget Otoo has in a tweet inquired about the government’s supposed intended suit against Al Jazeera over ‘defamatory’ gold mafia exposé while responding to Kow Essuman’s claim that a tweep blocked him.

On July 31, 2023, Kow Essuman, the legal counsel to President Akufo-Addo, took to Twitter to criticize a user with the handle @receiptsguy. Mr. Essuman pointed out the irony in @receiptsguy's behavior of blocking him while simultaneously requesting others to tag him (Essuman) in his tweets.

“So @receiptsguy has blocked me on Twitter/X and yet posts my content and asks people to tag me. Coward! Be courageous and unblock me, and then tag me yourself in your posts,” Essuman tweeted.

The tweet sighted by GhanaWeb courted a response from Bridget Otoo as the media personality mentioned that Essuman was the first to have blocked @receiptsguy. Her interest, according to the tweet was rather not about the Twitter block, but rather, an update on the issue with Al Jazeera.

“You blocked him first. But that’s not the most important issue here. Lawyer, Aljazeera suit, how far?” Bridget Otoo’s tweet read.

You blocked him first. But that’s not the most important issue here.
Lawyer , Aljazeera suit, how far? https://t.co/gt0sLv6Oz2

— BO1 (@Bridget_Otoo) July 31, 2023

Akufo-Addo demands retraction, apology from Al Jazeera over defamatory gold mafia exposé

On April 25, 2023, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo demanded an immediate retraction and apology from Al Jazeera Media Network over one of its recent documentaries that named him as having been involved, in a way or another, in some illegal activities.

The documentary, Gold Mafia, which was serialised in four different episodes, had one of the main characters in it, Alistair Mathias, mention in one of them that the president of Ghana was his lawyer.

Alistair had also claimed that he had very close relations with the president, plus other African Heads of State, a claim the presidency has denied.

“The documentary in question made baseless claims that the President acted as lawyer for one Mr. Alistair Mathias and implied that the President personally benefitted unlawfully from an alleged $100m state infrastructure contract purportedly awarded to Mr. Mathias.

"In his letter dated 11th April, 2023, responding to AL Jazeera’s letter of 2nd April, 2023, which was received on 6th April, 2023, containing these vague and defamatory allegations, the Legal Counsel to the President, Mr. Kow Abaka Essuman, acting on the instructions of the President, informed Al Jazeera that the President had not been in private practice since the year 2000 and that the President had no recollection of acting as a lawyer, either personally or through his law firm, Messrs. Akufo-Addo, Prempeh and Co, for a Mr. Alistair Mathias or his company, Guldrest Resources,” the statement said.

We don’t owe Akufo-Addo an apology – Al Jazeera suggests

In a response shared on the May 4 edition of the New Day programme, TV3 published an email response from Al Jazeera which suggested that the channel had taken care of all concerns raised by Akufo-Addo before the said documentary aired.

“We have responded to the letter from the president of the Republic of Ghana, correcting some parts of its content and clarifying various points.

“Prior to the publication of Gold Mafia, we wrote to the president outlining the claims made by Alistair Mathias. The president’s response appears near the end of the documentary,” their response noted.

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