Tag Archives: Defamation

Defamation: Court strikes out Buhari’s suit against AIT

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The Federal High Court on Wednesday in Abuja struck out defamation suit filed by President Muhammadu Buhari against DAAR Communications, operators of the African Independent Television, AIT.

Justice John Tsoho held that the court was compelled to strike out the suit because it appeared abandoned.

According to him, no representations from the parties have been entered since the matter was assigned to the court.

“This is against the rules of court, all opportunities given for the plaintiff and the respondents to put life in the suit have failed. The suit is hereby struck out,” Mr. Tsoho said.

Mr. Buhari had filed the suit in 2015 challenging the documentary transmitted by the station allegedly aimed at defaming his character in the eyes of the public.

The president averred that the video documentary aired by the television station was aimed at giving him away as a dictator and religious bigot.

He also averred that the documentary was also shown on the state-owned Nigerian Television Authority, NTA.

The News Agency of Nigeria reports that before the action, the APC national leadership had written to the two stations describing the video as fabricated and defamatory.

Subsequently, the presidential candidate of the APC, as he was then, approached the court with the suit.

The DAAR Communication is owned by a chieftain of the PDP, Raymond Dokpesi.

Defamation: Oduah Threatens Online Medium With Legal Action

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Former Minister of Aviation, Princess Stella Adaeze Oduah has vowed to take legal action against an online publication, Sahara Reporters over an alleged malicious publication linking her by the medium with an alleged N2.5billion fraud.

Oduah said the planned court action has become necessary so as to checkmate the excesses of the Sahara Reporters and put the tabloid back on the right track of journalism in the interest of the country and those wishing to serve in government.

Senator Oduah, representing Anambra North Senatorial District has been linked to an alleged malicious and fictitious fraud by the online tabloid, the Sahara Reporters that a non-existing source in the Economic Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has uncovered the sum of N2.5 billion in an account opened in the name of un-named housemaid of the senator.

In a statement in Abuja, by the Head of Communication in the office of Senator Oduah, Francisca Onyeisi, the ex-aviation minister said that the report was totally false, baseless and at best the imagination of the platform which she said was only set out to extort and blackmail leaders in its continuous attempt to break the rank of Senators of the 8th Assembly.

The statement said that over the past few months, the online platform, Sahara Reporters has continued to surpass itself by continuously sinking to an all-time low of posting uncorroborated reports to mislead Nigerians to promote the agenda of certain elements whose fight against corruption can only been seen on pages of newspapers and pockets of their media spinners while millions of Nigerians remained unemployed and hundreds of thousands of kids go to bed hungry day in day out.

Credit: Leadership

Bill Cosby Sues Beverly Johnson For Defamation, She Fires Back

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It appears Bill Cosby is firing back at his accusers one after the other.A week after he filed a defamation lawsuit against 7 of his 40 accusers, he filed another lawsuit Monday against supermodel Beverly Johnson, alleging she lied when she said he drugged and tried to rape her at his New York
home in the mid-1980s.
Cosby’s lawsuit says Johnson joined other women making accusations against him to revive her waning career and to help sell copies of her memoir.

The lawsuit alleges defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress, saying Cosby and Johnson never spent any time alone in his house, he never drugged her and “her story is a lie.”
Johnson, 63, the first African-American supermodel, first made her accusation against Cosby in Vanity Fair magazine in late 2014.
She said that in the mid-1980s, she went to Cosby’s residence to work on acting exercises, including one in which she acted drunk, when Cosby asked her to have a drink from his cappuccino machine.
“I knew by the second sip of the drink Cosby had given me that I’d been drugged — and drugged good,” she wrote. Johnson said she struggled so much that Cosby took her out of the house and put her into a cab.
Cosby seeks unspecified damages, an injunction requiring Johnson to retract her statements, removal of the chapter about Cosby in future copies of her memoir and removal of the chapter from unsold copies.

Defamation: Court Orders Service On Metuh

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A Lagos High Court, sitting at Ikeja, yesterday, ordered that the court process in a N500 million defamation suit filed by the National Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, be served on the spokesperson of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Mr. Olisa Metuh.

The court presided by Justice Oluwatoyin Ipaye gave the order after listening to the claimant’s lawyer, Wahab Shittu. She ordered the service of all processes including the motion for interlocutory injunction on the defendant. Consequently, the matter has been adjourned to November 17 for report of service and/or the hearing of the pending applications for interlocutory injunction filed by the claimant.

It would be recalled that the APC spokesperson slammed a N500 million suit on Metuh over alleged defamation of his character and person. In the suit, Mohammed claimed to have been defamed by a press release allegedly authored and circulated on September 20 by Metuh.

He disclosed that the PDP spokesperson had in the statement accused him of embezzling funds meant for fencing an airport in one of the APC-controlled states in the South-West. He also claimed that Metuh accused him of diverting money he collected to supply ambulances to one APC-controlled state in the South-West.

Metuh had, in the statement, allegedly wondered where Mohammed got the courage to speak on corruption when indeed the APC spokesman had mastered the art of corruption having been “a personal aide to one of the most corrupt politicians to ever bestride the political space of the country.”

Credit: NigerianPilot

Newspaper Vendor Demands N50m, Apology From Senator For Assault, Defamation

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A newspaper vendor in Akwa Ibom State Mr. Ndifereke Asuquo Etim has demanded the sum of N50 million and an unreserved apology from a one-time Publicity Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Senator Anietie Okon as compensation for assault and defamation of character.

A letter by the lawyer to the vendor Ndianabasi  Udofia to the Senator warned that failure to accede to the demands within 14 days shall attract appropriate legal steps in a court of competent jurisdiction to remedy the wrong done his client.

The lawyer recalled that on 23rd, September 2015 at the Banquet Hall, Government House, Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, the Senator wantonly abused the fundamental right to human dignity by publicly maltreating his client (the vendor).

He said the vendor was beaten black blue, humiliated and ordered orderlies to strip him naked on the spurious, malicious, and unfounded allegation that his client stole the Senator money.

“After beating our client to a coma, he was stripped naked to recover your alleged missing cash. Only N600.00 was found on our client, money he realized from selling his papers.

“You have not deemed it fit to apologise to our client till now despite the humongous cash our client has spent from good Samaritans to receive medical attention as a result of your assault on him which left him partially blind and deaf hence affected his petty vendor business.

Credit: thisdaylive

I Am Unaware Of Lai Mohammed’s N500m Defamation Suit- Metuh

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The Publicity Secretary of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Olisa Metuh, on Tuesday, responded to media reports that spokesperson of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has filed a N500 against million suit at a Lagos State High Court in Ikeja, seeking compensation for alleged defamation of his person by some issues raised by him (Metuh) in response to one of his (Mohammed’s) statements.

Richard Ihediwa, the special assistant to the PDP Publicity Secretary, in a statement on Tuesday,  said neither the PDP spokesperson nor any of his lawyers was aware of any such suit by Mohammed, adding that they have not been served.

Ihediwa said: “The attention of the Office of the National Publicity Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has been drawn to reports in some section of the media, suggesting that the National Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has filed a suit against Chief Olisa Metuh…”

Read More: vanguardngr