Presidential Candidate of the Liberal Party of Ghana (LPG), Kofi Akpaloo has rendered an apology to prominent lawyer, Tsatsu Tsikata for making false statements about the legal practitioner’s motivation for endorsing Former President Mahama’s presidential campaign.
In an interview with GHOne TV a few weeks ago, Mr. Akpaloo had claimed that the reason Mr. Tsikata had backed the National Democratic Congress (NDC) Leader for office was to benefit from contracts as had been the case during the former president’s first term.
Following the claims, Mr. Tsikata sued the presidential candidate, contending that the utterances were understood to mean that the plaintiff was endorsing former President Mahama as “he was getting contracts under Mahama”.
He also noted in the statement of claim that Mr. Akpaloo’s comments portrayed him as one who obtained favours during the erstwhile Mahama administration, therefore, his judgment on who to vote for, cannot be trusted.
Mr. Tsikata, in court documents said the comments about him were egregious falsehoods which had negatively impacted his hard won reputation.
He prayed the court for reliefs ranging from damages for libel, aggravated damages against the first defendant, EIB Network, the parent company of the platform upon which the comments had been made to punitive costs.
However in an interview with GH One’s Serwaa Amihere, Mr. Akpaloo apologized for the “unfortunate” comments he made about one of the country’s leading lawyers.
He said he would not purposely intend to disrespect Mr. Tsikata whom he revealed was a relative even as he insisted he knew nothing about his previous claims linking him to contracts during the Mahama regime.
“He is my father. Honestly, he is one of the people that I respect so much. He’s my father’s cousin. You know we are all from Anyako so I will never disrespect. Never on earth will I do anything to disrespect him.
“Which contract? I don’t know which contract that he has benefitted from so it’s unfortunate,” he said in the interview.
Asked what he would directly say to Mr. Tsikata about the claims, he said he was “very sorry if my utterances or anything have offended him or cost him”. He added that it was not “deliberate” in any way.
He added that he was saddened when Mr. Tsikata was unjustly sentenced in 2008.
