On July 23, 2025, Hugh Clement A. Brown, Acting Chief Executive Officer of Ghana’s Forestry Commission, filed a GH¢20 million defamation lawsuit against Kwame Baffoe, widely known as Abronye DC, the Bono Regional Chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), at the Accra High Court. The suit stems from a July 10, 2025, broadcast on Abronye’s OHIA TV program, The Evidence, where he accused Brown of forging official documents, unlawfully authorizing the sale of forest reserves, and backdating letters to implicate the previous NPP administration in illegal mining activities.
Brown, a seasoned forester with a PhD in Tropical Forest Ecology and a 32-year tenure at the Commission, including roles as Director of Operations and Executive Director of the Forest Services Division, was appointed Acting CEO in January 2025. He contends that Abronye’s allegations, which claimed Brown signed documents in May and June 2024—before his appointment—to facilitate mining payments, are “false, malicious, and calculated” to damage his reputation. The broadcast portrayed Brown as “an embezzler, a dishonest and fraudulent person, and a thief,” causing significant harm locally and internationally, according to his legal team.
In response, the Forestry Commission issued a rejoinder on July 14, 2025, clarifying that the documents in question—two dated May 16, 2024, and one dated June 11, 2024—contained a clerical error, with the year mistakenly typed as 2024 instead of 2025. The Commission stated that the errors were promptly corrected, with revised letters dispatched and archived, dismissing Abronye’s claims of falsification as unfounded.
Brown is seeking GH¢15 million in general damages for libel, GH¢5 million in exemplary damages, six televised apologies on GTV, TV3, Joy TV, and OHIA TV, four weeks of retractions in the Daily Graphic, and a formal apology on OHIA TV’s digital platforms. Abronye has not yet formally responded to the lawsuit.
Source: African Publicity
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