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Samuel Koku Anyidoho, former Deputy General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), has threatened to sue investigative journalist Manasseh Azure Awuni regarding allegedly defamatory assertions contained in the publication "The Fourth John: Reign, Rejection and Rebound."
The plaintiff contests the author's characterisation of his relative influence during his tenure as Head of Communications at the Presidency.
In multiple social media communiqués dated March 25, 2025, Anyidoho declared:
Manasseh Azure should be ready for my next suit because of what he wrote about me in his book. Manasseh Azure interviewed me for a book he said he was writing.
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He asked me questions, and I answered him. So, it is disingenuous of him to write that I was more powerful than Vice President Mahama. I was never more powerful than the vice president.
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I must salvage my reputation. I was never more powerful than Vice President John Mahama when I worked with President Mills. Manasseh Azure will prove to me in court how he knew me to be more powerful than the vice president.
Anyidoho takes legal actions against Captain Smart
This development follows Anyidoho's recent institution of a GH¢5 million defamation suit at the Accra High Court (March 25, 2025) against media personality Blessed Godsbrain Smart (professionally known as Captain Smart), pertaining to allegedly injurious statements broadcast in February 2025 and subsequently disseminated by GhanaWeb.
The plaintiff maintains these publications have:
Caused quantifiable damage to his professional standing
Injured his ecclesiastical reputation
Constituted actionable mental distress
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Remedies sought include:
1. GH¢5 million in combined compensatory and exemplary damages
2. Judicial order for full retraction
3. Permanent injunctive relief against further publication
Contextual background from contested publication
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The disputed text characterises Anyidoho as having exercised exceptional authority during the Mills administration, including instances of unilateral pronouncements.
Notably, it references a June 2012 incident during a Black Stars qualifying match when Anyidoho allegedly declared on Joy FM:
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"President Atta-Mills is upset, and everybody who has a role to play in this will have their heads roll," subsequently specifying the termination of the Ashanti Regional ECG Director.
The publication notes this declaration was disavowed by then-information minister Fritz Baffour, who stated:
The president has given no such directive, and it is therefore not true that the ECG boss in the Ashanti Region has been fired.
Furthermore, the text suggests these autonomous communications complicated governance during President Mills' illness, asserting:
The attitude of some presidential staffers and ministers upset [Vice President Mahama] so badly that he once decided to quit as vice president." It details an aborted resignation attempt, interrupted when a chief director discovered the near-complete draft during routine office oversight.
The narrative concludes by observing the subsequent constitutional transition following President Mills' passing on July 24, 2012, wherein then-Vice President Mahama assumed executive authority and secured electoral confirmation.