Renowned businessman Ibrahim Mahama and his company, Engineers & Planners (E&P), have filed a defamation suit against policy analyst and Vice President of IMANI Africa, Bright Simons, at an Accra High Court.

The plaintiffs are seeking a declaration that certain statements made by Simons were defamatory, along with general damages of GH¢10 million, a public retraction, and a perpetual injunction restraining him from further defamatory comments.

According to the statement of claim dated, Thursday, 28 May 2025, Simons is alleged to have published an article titled “Ghana Provides a Lesson in How Not to Nationalise a Gold Mine” on his personal website and disseminated it via his official X (formerly Twitter) account, @BBSimons, on 19 April 2025.

Ibrahim Mahama contends that the article contains false and malicious assertions implying that Engineers & Planners was in financial distress and that the company wielded undue influence over government mining decisions due to his familial relationship with former President John Dramani Mahama.

The suit further accuses Simons of suggesting that this alleged influence could result in national commercial losses and conflicts of interest within the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources.

The businessman argues that the publication has caused significant reputational damage, adversely affecting his relationships with financiers, partners, and regulators.

The plaintiffs are demanding that Simons issue an unqualified public retraction and apology on all platforms where the article was initially published, including a full-page retraction in the Daily Graphic newspaper for six consecutive editions over three months.

According to court documents, the article attracted significant attention after it was shared on social media. As of 8 May 2025, the post had reportedly garnered over 93,000 views, 250 reactions, 98 reposts, 26 comments, and 109 bookmarks.

The plaintiffs argue that this engagement amplified the spread of the alleged defamatory material.

The article claims that E&P was suffering financially due to the temporary suspension of operations at the Damang gold mine and suggested that the company’s creditors were “up in arms.”

It also alleged that Ibrahim Mahama, the brother of the former President, benefited from political connections and that E&P was being unduly favoured in the mining sector policies.

Mr Mahama and his company have dismissed these claims as “entirely false and wholly without factual basis,” arguing that the article paints E&P as financially unstable and undermines its credibility with current and potential business partners.

The reliefs being sought by the plaintiffs include: A declaration that the statements made by Bright Simons are defamatory;A public retraction and apology to be published on the same digital platforms and as a full-page notice in the Daily Graphic for six consecutive editions and a perpetual injunction restraining Simons from making further defamatory statements;

Other reliefs are General damages of GH¢10 million, Legal costs, and any other relief the court deems appropriate.

In response, the High Court has directed Bright Simons to file his defence within eight days of being served with the writ. The order, issued by Acting Chief Justice Paul Baffoe-Bonnie on 28 May 2025, warned that failure to comply would result in judgment being entered in his absence.

The writ reads in part: “an action having been commenced against you by the issue of this Writ by the above-named plaintiff: Ibrahim Mahama & Engineers & Planners Company Ltd.

You are hereby commanded that within eight days after service of this Writ on you, inclusive of the day of service, you do cause an appearance to be entered for you: Bright Simons. And take notice that in default of your so doing, judgment may be given in your absence without further notice to you.”

The defamation case is pending before the General Jurisdiction Division of the High Court in Accra.

Meanwhile, Simons has since acknowledged the writ on his website saying “I got word this afternoon via social media that the brother of Ghana’s President, and the Chief Executive of mining services firm, Engineers & Planners, has sued me for 10 million Ghana Cedis (GHS), the equivalent of about $1 million on Ghana’s frothy forex market”.

“What is the source of his ire? He takes strong objections to remarks I made in an essay scrutinising and criticising how the government went about with its plan to nationalise a gold mine currently run by Gold Fields, a large mining concern.

“After carefully examining the suit with my lawyers, we have decided to vigorously defend the court proceedings for the following reasons.

“There is nothing in the comments complained of that can remotely be described as defamatory. We are not responsible for the elaborate twists extracted from those innocuous words by the lawyers of Mr. Ibrahim Mahama, the plaintiff in this suit.

“The lawsuit is a classic example of what in the US is known as a SLAPP – “strategic lawsuit against public participation“. It is designed to scare away analysts and activists from even the most basic scrutiny of Mr. Ibrahim Mahama and his company. Such a situation shall place them above every sense of accountability even when they get involved in matters bordering on, or entangled, with public interest and/or public resources.

“My defence is so plain and straightforward, and so without any shred of guile, that I intend to provide the highlights right away. I have no interest in waiting to ambush counsel for Mr. Mahama at trial.

“The first entry in the “particulars of defamation” is a logical deduction from the business relationship between Engineers & Planners (E&P) and Gold Fields. E&P is the mining contractor for Gold Fields at Damang. It receives significant income from mining and hauling gold ore for and on behalf of Gold Fields at Damang (and Tarkwa).

“It is common knowledge, also attested to in Gold Fields’ annual reports, that 2022 was the last year of full production at Damang under the Pit Cutback project. From 2023 onwards, Gold Fields has mostly processed stockpiles. To the extent that E&P has not been engaged in its usual mining activities for a major client, standard analytical judgement would lead to the conclusion that it has been “hit very hard”.

“Regarding the second entry in the particulars of defamation, I reiterate that E&P has some unhappy creditors. Any analyst who follows the company well knows about this. It is hardly unusual that in a capital-intensive industry like mining that a big company like E&P would have some unhappy creditors. Some of the biggest companies in the world in some of the most advanced markets are constantly restructuring debt facilities and engaging in “liability management” due to market stresses. For example, last month, corporate debt restructurings rose 60% in the US as “headwinds gathered. It is very doubtful that any of the creditors involved were not up in arms about the turn of events.

“At any rate, some of E&P’s creditor woes are in the public domain and therefore common knowledge to any diligent analyst. My essay would, thus, have come as no surprise to any serious players in the market, and could not therefore have done anything to impair E&P’s goodwill and business reputation.

“For example, publicly available information shows that E&P was loaned $68 million to improve fleet availability at the Damang mine in 2020. E&P was not able to keep up with payments leading to the recording of impairments and piled up interest. It is doubtful that E&P’s creditors would object to the use of the phrase, up in arms, about the credit loss provisioning they had to endure.

“If it is necessary for the defence, different creditors shall be subpoenaed to speak to their demand notices and expressions of unhappiness in order to gauge whether they have ever been up in arms about their loans to E&P.

“For the grammatical education of all of us non-native English speakers, Oxford Languages’ online dictionary defines the idiom, up in arms, to mean: “protesting vigorously about something.”

“We are certain that the facts, elicited through discovery, will bear us out in court that some creditors of E&P have protested vigorously about overdue debt payments at least once in the recent past.

“It is vitally important that public scrutiny is heightened when a company run by a wealthy and powerful individual like Mr. Ibrahim Mahama, whose brother is none other than the sitting President, is placed in a position where it could continue to provide mining services to a nationalised mine. Especially when the service rates involved in such a situation would have to be set in the best commercial interests of the Republic.

“However, the fear of lawsuits has created an atmosphere of censorship in Ghana whenever the interests of powerful and wealthy companies are placed in the spotlight. I for one do not intend to honour this tradition. It does not serve as a good example to the next generation of public interest analysts and activists in Ghana if those of us who have been in this trade for nearly two decades buckle from covering the affairs of the rich and powerful. And only because such individuals can afford to hire lawyers to file random lawsuits every time their name is mentioned in connection with important public policy issues in a tone they don’t like.

“Accountability, as I like to say, is a marathon. We shall continue to provide fair, objective, and unflinching coverage of the business affairs of Mr. Ibrahim Mahama and Engineers & Planners whenever the public interest demands so.