Former Ghana Football Association (GFA) President Kwesi Nyantakyi has hit journalist Dan Kweku Yeboah and his media outfit, Peace FM, with a defamation lawsuit seeking 10 million cedis in damages on Tuesday morning.
The former FIFA Council Member also slapped Pulse Ghana, and GhanaWeb with the legal action, seeking redress for allegations by Yeboah that Nyantakyi embezzled $2 million from the GFA.
Nyantakyi, who served as GFA President before his resignation insists that the assertions lack factual basis, framing them as “reckless and defamatory.”
The other media outlets have been dragged into the lawsuit because they also used their platforms to amplify the claims of Dan Kweku Yeboah without any basis in fact, the lawsuit by Nyantakyi said.
In a lawsuit filed, Nyantakyi claims these outlets and Yeboah made defamatory remarks implicating him in theft from the GFA’s accounts, leading to significant damage to his reputation.
“President Kwesi Nyantakyi nkoa ko yee GFA Sika two million dollars ($2m) efee Unibank ko di ye” to wit: “President Kwesi Nyantakyi alone went to Unibank and withdrew GFA’s two million dollars and embezzled or misappropriated it for his personal benefit,” the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit argues that Yeboah’s statements, as reported by the named media outlets, were not only false but published with the intent to malign him, noting that these allegations have caused him undue public distress and professional harm.
“The statement of first defendant was a wicked, malicious, and deliberate falsehood published by first defendant to court hatred, opprobrium, public dislike and reduce the image of the Plaintiff in the eyes of right-thinking members of the society,” the lawsuit continued.
Additionally, the lawsuit underscores Nyantakyi’s contention that the claims were made without any attempt to verify facts from credible sources, describing the outlets’ publishing of the claims as irresponsible journalism.
Through his counsel, he seeks damages and a formal retraction from the defendants.
