Is Afenyo-Markin’s Gh¢15 million suit a face-saving writ?

In this country, we have turned defamation suits into face masks. You wear one when the political air gets polluted, not necessarily because you want justice, but because you want to look like you want justice.

The story is simple. Sammy Gyamfi, a lawyer who knows that truth is a complete defence to defamation, looked into a camera, called the Minority Leader an extortionist, and dared him to go to court. It was bold, emphatic.

Honourable Alexander Afenyo-Markin, also a senior lawyer and Minority Leader of Parliament, obliged. He filed a GH¢15 million suit. Multimedia was even joined. The republic waited. The NPP communicators sharpened their talking points. Then the High Court, on 14^th October, threw the whole thing out.

Not because Sammy Gyamfi proved his allegation. Not because the court found Afenyo-Markin to be anything. But because the writ itself was incurably defective. No sufficient particulars of the defamatory publication on the writ, contrary to Order 57 Rule 2 of C.I. 47. The court said you cannot cure that kind of defect with arguments in paragraph 12 of a statement of claim. You cannot amend your way out of an objection that is already pending.

For a GH¢15 million case, that is not a small mistake. That is like buying a brand new V8 to go to court and forgetting the engine at home.

And that is why Ghanaians are laughing. Not in a happy way. In that painful, "ah, so this is what we have become" way.

Let us be honest. The initial writ looked like face-saving. A national controversy erupts. Your name is dragged on every WhatsApp platform. Your own party communicators tell you privately that they are tired of defending you. The only way to show strength is to file. So you file big GH¢15 million suit. The headline alone is meant to scare.

But filing is not litigating.
If you truly want to clear your name, you go back to court. You file properly. You endorse the writ with the exact words complained of. You plead the particulars like a lawyer, not like a political communicator writing a press release. You serve the person, you let the court hear you, and you let Ghanaians hear the evidence.

Because here is the political reality Afenyo-Markin must face: at the Public Accounts Committee, Sammy Gyamfi appeared. Those who wanted to pin him down could not. His delivery, to use the words of many who watched, was on point. He answered. Whether you like him or not, he spoke with a confidence that right-thinking persons found convincing.

And so the burden has shifted, not in law, but in public opinion. In law, the person who alleges must prove. In politics, the person whose name is mentioned must clear it.

If Afenyo-Markin does not go back to court, properly, and make the process public, Ghanaians will believe Sammy Gyamfi. That is not law. That is how public trust works. You cannot file a defective writ, lose on a technicality, and then expect us to clap for you and move on.

If Sammy Gyamfi has no evidence, let the court expose him. Let him be made to prove his emphatic claim to strict proof. But if he has the evidence he claims to have, then let it also come out.

That is why the call from even NPP communicators themselves is instructive. One of them said on TV last week: "He needs to exonerate himself. If he doesn't, he must be removed as Minority Leader. He should not even contest Effutu." That is not an NDC person speaking. That is your own house telling you the kitchen is too hot.

So, Hon. Afenyo-Markin, give us a break from incurably defective face-saving.

Go back to court. File it right. Serve it right. Let us hear it in open court.

Until then, forgive us if we listen to the man who sounded like he had evidence, over the man whose writ sounded like an apology letter that forgot its own address.