Shatta Wale Silenced In Court  

Shatta Wale
An Accra Fast Track High Court yesterday granted an order restraining dancehall artiste Nii Armah Mensah Jnr, popularly known in showbiz as Shatta Wale, from making further defamatory remarks about events outfit Charter House.

Shatta Wale's counsel has meanwhile requested for an out of court settlement and has formally written to lawyers of Charter House.

The two plaintiffs in the case are Charter House and the company's Chief Executive, Iyiola Ayoade, who are praying the court to declare that Shatta Wale defamed them in a series of four videos he published and circulated a few weeks ago on social media site, Facebook.

They are consequently petitioning the court to awardGH¢10 million as damages for the defamatory comments made in the four videos that the artiste had uploaded.

The plaintiffs are also asking the court to order Shatta Wale to record and upload four different videos, rendering 'an unqualified apology and retraction of each of the four videos, whose terms would be approved by the plaintiffs prior to the recording and uploading on his facebook page.'

Charter House and Mr Ayoade are also asking the court for an 'order of perpetual injunction retraining the defendant, his agents, hirelings, manager(s), privies and assigns or any person through him and howsoever described, from making and/or repeating the defamatory statements or similar statements in the nature of the ones complained in the video recordings.'

At the trial of the case in the court presided over by Naa Adoley Azu, the court upheld the submission of Egbert Faibille Jnr, counsel for the plaintiffs, asking the court to retrain the defendant from making any further defamatory remarks against the plaintiffs.

The Defence Counsel's plea to the court for an out of court settlement was rejected by Egbert Faibille Jnr who alleged that Shatta Wale, even when he had been served with the Court Summons, went ahead to release a single on Charter House.

The trial judge in view of the Defence Counsel's request for an out of court settlement, adjourned the case to November 2, 2014.

Ms Adoley Azu, however ordered the Defence Counsel to present their terms of settlement or the case would be heard.

Shatta Wale's attacks on Charter House started about two years ago when he was nominated in one of the categories for the Vodafone Ghana Music Awards (VGMA) but lost the award to female dancehall act Kaakie.

Soon after the event ended, Shatta Wale got angry and was reported to have vandalised Charter House's property at the venue.  He followed with a song to insult the company and even used some unprintable adjectives to describe the genitals of Kaakie, the artiste he lost the award to.

Shatta Wale later made a 'u-turn' when he publicly apologised to Charter House but soon after that, released another song to insult the company.

The musician is also on record to havedescribed the Ghanaian media as 'the most foolish' set of journalists he ever came across—an insulting statement that has been endorsed by his manager, Lawrence Nana Asiamah Hanson, aka Bull Dog.

Shatta Wale took to his official facebook page to write: 'INFACT GHANA MEDIA IS THE MOST FOOLISH MEDIA I HAVE EVER SEEN IN MY LIFE…ANY MEDIA THAT PUBLISH ANY FAKE NEWS ABOUT ME SHATTA WALE IS A PU**Y…!!! I HAVE SAID IT…PU**Y.' Surprisingly, the first person to like the statement on Shatta Wale's wall was Bull Dog.

The musician has gained notoriety for insulting persons and institutions whose opinions about him, he does not agree with. Though the attitude has been largely condemned by entertainment pundits and civil society, Shatta Wale's handlers have not chided him, at least publicly, about his conduct.

By Jeffrey De-Graft Johnson
Email: [email protected]