Lawrence Nana Asiamah Hanson, known in showbiz as Bulldog, was arrested on Monday, January 11, 2021, over allegations that he had threatened President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo will not complete his four-year term in office if aggrieved customers of Menzgold, a gold dealership firm, do not get back their locked-up funds.
Bulldog who claims that he invested in Menzgold, stated on UTV’s United Showbiz on Saturday, January 9, 2021: "The fact that people invested in Menzgold, it is also somebody’s business which employs a lot of people. Now, if you have issues with whatever it is, when commenting on Menzgold, you need to relax with your comments.
"We have a culture of trying to pull people down in this country. Look, two or three years from now or even this year, you could start a huge business [but] if someone goes on the rampage to say that the business you are engaging in is not good, I think it is not healthy for our system.” Bulldog was commenting on issues raised on the show by co-panellist Afia Schwarzenegger.
Trying to give vivid explanations on why Menzgold was shut down by the Akufo-Addo administration, Bulldog said, Menzgold was operating when the government indicated that the firm had no licence to operate in that ‘specialised’ field.
“In my view, if you say the person doesn’t have a permit to run the business, you regularize their business. You make sure they get the permit, then you allow them to work. If you don’t do that and say OK shut down [the] business, what you need to do is to protect customers,” Bulldog explained.
Making reference to Afia Schwarzenegger’s comments earlier that some of her family folk who saved with Menzgold had lost all their investments, Bulldog reiterated that the government needed to pay all investors before shutting down the business.
“It doesn’t make sense [if] they want to shut them down,” Bulldog said. “To protect customers, customers should receive their monies before they shut them down.”
Bulldog obviously ruffled by the interjection replied: “Go and ask the government that shut them down. Are you listening? We’ll get our monies back else Nana Addo will run; he won’t finish his four years. I’m telling you. He won’t finish his four years.”
When Afia Schwarzenegger suggested that he was threatening the President, Bulldog said: “Just shut up, that’s none of your business.”
Background
Menzgold was shut down in September 2018, and stopped from accepting new investments.
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 monies for the 1,000 or so customers, estimated to be about GH¢200 million, Nana Appiah Mensah, the Chief Executive Officer of the now-defunct company 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 administration has said it will not use taxpayers’ money to pay Menzgold’s depositors.
Watch Bulldog in the video below:
Bulldog before the show ended retracted the comments he had made earlier about the President and explained that he had nothing against the president but only wanted him to pay the customers who lost their investments in the Menzgold saga.
