Veteran Highlife musician, Ben Brako, has asked fellow musician Gyedu Blay Ambolley to either retract a ‘defamatory statement’ made about him and apologize or face him in court.
Mr. Brako is the second person after Okyeame Kwame to threaten to sue Ambolley for the same offence.
Ben Brako served the notice through his lawyers Dr Ekow Daniels & CO of the Jan Chambers firm on March 3, 2020.
Ambolley is being threatened with the law suit after he granted an interview on 3FM, stating categorically that he has evidence that former President of Musician Union of Ghana (MUSIGA) Bice ‘Obour’ Osei Kuffuor gave him (Ben Brako), Okyeame Kwame and other friends of his, GH¢50,000 each from the GH¢2M fiscal budget money which was given to the union by the government.
Mr. Brako who took to his Instagram page, to put out a statement, in an attempt to clear the air on the allegation made by Ambolley.
He also asked for Media General to immediately cease the broadcast of the interview on any of its platforms.
His post read:
“I want to address the statements Mr. Gyedu Blay Ambolley (Mr Ambolley) made in an interview on 3FM’s Showbiz 927 with MzGee published on 3news.com on 22 February 2020.
First and foremost, I wish to categorically say that I have never received any money from Mr Bice Osei Kuffour aka “Obour”, irrespective of the source. Secondly it is incumbent upon me to address this issue because Mr Ambolley is a respected senior highlife musician whose word more often than not is considered as credible.
I must say that there is a perception among us as human beings where we think that if a person is adept at a discipline then that person is also well versed in most disciplines in life. But this is not always the case as someone may be an expert in one endeavor and totally inept in others. I bring up this phenomenon of “false equivalence” because Mr. Ambolley is a highly respected highlife musician, and also an elderly man and as such there is the tendency to take his words seriously without too much scrutiny.
I have thrown the gauntlet to Mr. Ambolley personally through Whatsapp and generally through the media to substantiate his claim that I received or was paid GH₵50,000.00 (FIFTY THOUSAND GHANA CEDIS) from MUSIGA coffers from Obour or face legal action. I have not had any response until date. I am therefore in the process of issuing through my Solicitors a letter to Mr. Ambolley to either publicly retract his statement or face the court. I need to do this in order to clear my name. Mud tends to stick even if it is cleaned up, but at least a retraction and an apology will go a long way to clear my name and also have it on record for future reference that Mr. Ambolley’s assertion was unfounded. This may also deter him from soiling other people’s reputation without first having the evidence to back it up.
I am also asking my Solicitors to write to Media General Ghana Limited , since 3FM happens to be one of their outlets, to demand that they stop further publication of this interview. Since they may not have had any warning that Mr. Ambolley was going to make such a spurious claim on the initial radio interview, it was incumbent on such an established and respectable media h”
See the letter below :
