Allotey Jacobs threatens to sue Hopeson Adorye for defamation
The Central Region chairman of the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC), Bernard Allotey Jacobs is threatening to sue Hopeson Adorye, a deputy communications director of the New Patriotic Party for alleged defamation.
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Adorye over the weekend claimed Allotey Jacobs had been arrested at UK’s Heathrow Airport for narcotics and money laundering related offences, a claim that got the British High Commissioner to Ghana, Jon Benjamin to take to social media to deny.
However on Monday, Allotey Jacobs, who describes himself variously as a “footsoldier” and an “educated fisherman”, denied the allegation and told Samuel Eshun, host of Radio Gold’s morning show over the phone from the US, that he was appalled by the “concocted” story to tarnish his image but will not allow anybody to toy with the reputation he has built for himself from humble beginnings.
“…I’m even surprised hearing this. I mean somebody’s own figment of imagination [sic] and I learnt it is Hopeson Adorye, and I will never spare him,” he said.
“The law will take its course. I mean you can’t defame somebody, you just concoct story [sic] out of nowhere and then you push that as an agenda on the social media, no I will not buy that. And it is not a matter of ‘oh Charlie, I’m sorry. No, no, no. Not at all, not at all. You see, maybe it’s a systemic plan to trouble the leadership of the NDC by trying to tag them as drug barons or drug dealers or money launderers. We are not like that,” he explained.
Allotey admitted transiting through the UK but said he went through very normal processes to await his connecting flight and was surprised to hear he had been arrested carrying some £500,000 on him.
“If I have 500,000 on me I would have built a skyscraper in Cape Coast,” he said.
Asked if Hopeson Adorye had contacted him since the allegations, Allotey said they had been on a radio station Monday morning on the same issue and that Adorye had claimed somebody had given him that information.
“I was on-air this morning with him at Kasapa FM and he was saying that it was somebody who informed him. Look at it, a grown-up person like Hopeson Adorye comes on air and says that somebody told him. And even when the British High Commissioner, because from what I read on the social media or online, what the British High Commissioner said was even being denied by them and that the story is true. British High Commissioner comes to refute that allegation, that rumour, that concocted story and you have them also challenging the High Commissioner and the most unfortunate thing is that this thing happened when I was in the air, on (the) flight to Dallas, and I say they are damned lucky, but not yet, because Santana will be in town and people will run helter-skelter.”
Allotey Jacobs, a member of the Board of the National Petroleum Authority, said he was in the US with another Board member to inspect the products of a firm said to manufacture equipment capable of detecting adulterated fuel, and to hold discussions with them for a possible technology transfer.