Private legal practitioner Martin Kpebu has urged Minority Leader Alexander Afenyo-Markin and GoldBod CEO Sammy Gyamfi to settle their defamation dispute outside court, arguing that the lawsuit could undermine cooperation between the government and opposition MPs.
Kpebu said the Ghc15 million suit, which the Accra High Court dismissed as incurably defective, was not worth allowing to damage working relationships between political opponents.
He explained that government officials and opposition MPs often cooperate on national and constituency matters, making prolonged legal battles between them potentially harmful to political engagement.
“People in government do a lot of business with opposition MPs,” he said, adding that the lawsuit was “not good for the cooperation between government and opposition parties.”
Kpebu noted that MPs often rely on consensus and consultations to conduct parliamentary business. He warned that the pending suit could have complicated those relationships, particularly if Afenyo-Markin felt that members of the governing party were not supporting him while expecting his cooperation on other matters.
He therefore backed the suggestion that both parties explore mediation rather than return to court.
“Even though there is a right for them to go and correct it and go back to court, they can talk about it. There should be some mediation and then they resolve it,” he said on Joy FM.
Kpebu also argued that the time spent discussing the lawsuit could be better used to scrutinise government activities.
He said the dispute had taken attention away from matters that could contribute more directly to national development and called for an end to the legal battle.
The court’s decision did not determine whether Gyamfi’s description of Afenyo-Markin as an “extortionist” was defamatory or whether the underlying allegation was true.
