Hugh Clement A. Brown, Acting Chief Executive Officer of Ghana’s Forestry Commission, has filed a GH¢20 million defamation lawsuit against Kwame Baffoe, popularly known as Abronye DC, Bono Regional Chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP).
The suit, lodged at the Accra High Court, stems from a July 10, 2025, broadcast on Baffoe’s OHIA TV programme, The Evidence, where he accused Brown of forging official documents and illegally authorizing the sale of Ghana’s forest reserves by backdating letters to implicate the former NPP administration.
Brown, a trained forester with a PhD in Tropical Forest Ecology and a veteran of the Forestry Commission since 1993, denies the allegations, stating he was not Acting CEO when the alleged documents, dated May and June 2024, were supposedly signed.
He refutes claims of financial irregularities or framing the NPP, asserting that Baffoe’s statements were “malicious” and designed to tarnish his reputation. Brown’s legal team argues the accusations falsely portray him as “an embezzler, a dishonest and fraudulent person, and a thief.”
The Forestry Commission, in a July 14, 2025, rejoinder, clarified that the disputed documents contained a clerical error, with dates mistakenly recorded as 2024 instead of 2025. The errors were promptly corrected, and the Commission denied any falsification, emphasizing transparency in its operations.
Brown seeks GH¢15 million in general damages, GH¢5 million in exemplary damages, six televised apologies on GTV, TV3, Joy TV, and OHIA TV, four weeks of printed retractions in the Daily Graphic, and a formal apology on OHIA TV’s digital platforms. Baffoe has not yet formally responded to the lawsuit.
