Edudzi Tamakloe, the lawyer of Lawrence Nana Asiamah Hanson has disclosed that his client who has just been granted bail for allegedly threatening the President was emotionally sound when he earned his ‘freedom’ and appeared unfazed by the attempts by “the powers that be to show him where power lies”.
Bulldog as the artiste manager is known in the showbiz circles was picked up by National Security operatives on Monday following his comment that President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo will not complete his 4-year-term in office if aggrieved customers of gold dealership firm, Menzgold, do not get their locked-up funds.
He argued on UTV’s United Showbiz on Saturday, January 9, 2021, that suggestions that customers invested at their own peril hence, cannot hold the government responsible for the inconvenience caused them is unacceptable.
“We’ll get our monies back else Nana Addo will run; he won’t finish his 4 years. I’m telling you. He won’t finish his 4 years,” a visibly angry Bulldog vehemently barked but later said his comment was not a threat, rather, it is to point out that the president should take the blame and do the needful.
“There is no way I have anything personal against the president. I am a citizen. I haven’t said I was going to kill him or anything. All I’m saying is that he should pay the customers because it was under his government they lost their monies.”
After spending almost 48 hours in police custody, Bulldog was granted bail in the sum of GH¢70,000.00 with three sureties.
Confirming the news to Okay FM, Edudzi Tamakloe would not give details but stressed his client remains strong.
“You know Bulldog is a highly-spirited young man and you can’t break him down psychologically or emotionally,” Mr. Edudzi remarked in the interview monitored by GhanaWeb.
While stressing that the repercussion of the closure of Menzgold was profound, he established that his client offered a clarification before the host drew down the curtain on the show.
“It’s not an easy thing for your funds to be locked up. If you look at the number of people who have subsequently lost their lives, the emotional issues are very high. And if you watch the programme, he basically explained the whole basis for making that claim…” Edudzi argued.
Menzgold was shut down on Thursday, September 12, 2019, and stopped from taking on new investments after an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) found that the company did not have the licence to deal in gold-trading. Unable to refund the over 1,000 customers the investment estimated to be about GH¢200 million, Chief Executive Officer of the now-defunct company Nana Appiah Mensah, was dragged to court.
While the final determination of the case is yet to be made, there have been numerous calls on the government to give customers a bailout but the Akufo-Addo-led government has said it will not use taxpayers’ money to pay Menzgold depositors.
Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia in a media engagement said, unlike the situation where the government rescued 4.4 million depositors whose funds got locked up in some banks and specialised deposit-taking institutions who were collapsed by their regulatory authorities over infractions and insolvency, the customers of Menzgold are not entitled to such rescue since they defied all warnings from the Bank of Ghana to do business with an unlicensed financial institution.
“Menzgold is not a licensed financial institution. We are talking about licensed financial institutions but if you set up your 419 institution and the Bank of Ghana warned repeatedly that people should not do business with Menzgold because they were not a licensed financial institution, so, you can’t use taxpayers’ money to pay locked-up funds of an institution that is not a licensed financial institution," Dr Bawumia said on Techiman-based Link89.1 FM in October last year.
