By Jennifer Y Omiloli
A previous Vice President, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, has executed his threat to sue President Muhammadu Buhari’s Special Assistant on Social Media, Lauretta Onochie, for her supposed hostile tweet by means of her twitter handle on May 7, 2019.
The post supposedly recommended that Atiku was on the watch rundown of security agents in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and had headed out to look for fear mongers in the Middle East.
Atiku, through his legal counsellor, Chief Mike Ozekhome (SAN), documented a N2.5billion suit against Onochie under the steady gaze of the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory in Abuja on June 26.
“To say that the claimant is shopping for terrorists knowing the same to be untrue and without any foundation is not only dishonest and reckless, but is calculated and politically designed to instigate security agents against him not only in the UAE, but across the world,” he stated in his statement of claim accompanying the suit.
Denying the charges contained in the said tweet, Atiku said the tweet was “politically orchestrated” “solely to cause maximum damage” to his “high reputation” while challenging “the purported victory” of Onochie’s boss, President Buhari in the last presidential race at the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal.
The presidential competitor of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the February 23, 2019 survey had in a May 14, 2019 letter, requested an expression of remorse, withdrawal and instalment of N500million pay from Onochie “to mitigate” the harm purportedly caused him by her internet-based life post.
He likewise took steps to sue her should she neglect to agree to the interest “inside 48 hours”.
Charging that Onochie was unaffected by his interest letter, Atiku, in his announcement of case going with his suit, expressed that as opposed to demonstrate “regret by withdrawing her prior distribution,” she further, on May 20, made “another slanderous production and furthermore distributed same all around online in the social and other print media” against his individual.
He said once in a while in May this year, he had set out on an outside outing to the UAE as he had done throughout the years, and keeping in mind that on the said excursion, Onochie on May 7, 2019, composed, through her twitter handle: “Atiku on UAE watchlist-Security sources Security agents in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are keeping a nearby tab on a previous Nigerian Vice Pres Atiku Abubakar who has been in the Middle East country for half a month now. What is he doing there? Me: looking for fear-based oppressors?”
The claimant said “the defamatory publication” was also published by several newspapers nationwide and on several social media news.
He denied the allegations contained in the said publication, which he described as “a figment of the imagination of the defendant”, but said it portrayed him “as an evil man, mentor of terrorists, someone who has links with terrorists, and a person who is interested in destabilising the peace and unity of Nigeria”.
“The publication also portrayed the claimant as a security threat and terrorist to right thinking members of the public and the society at large,” the former vice-president added.
He noted that “the odious publication has clearly rubbished the claimant’s image and reputation. It has caused him national and international backlash and embarrassment and has done incalculable damage to him.”
He added, “He has thereby been subjected to the shame and infamy of being viewed by members of the public as not only corrupt but as a terrorist and sponsor of terrorism.”
He said following the distribution, he got various phone calls, messages, visits, letters and private online networking talks by his relatives, companions, political and business partners, and universal statesmen and ladies, affirming “the alert and genuine concerns created by the litigant’s bogus production.”
The petitioner said he would dedicate the call logs demonstrating the instant messages, and calls gotten by him in the result of Onochie’s post.
He depicted “the whole abusive and maligning story” as “most deceptive, unmerited, false, pernicious and absolutely dispossessed of any establishment howsoever”.
He noticed that the “induction and grave ends” contained in the posts were “politically coordinated” and “designed by the litigant and others of her kind, exclusively to make most extreme harm the high notoriety of the petitioner, who is at present before the Election Petition Tribunal against her manager and supervisor, President Buhari, testing the last’s indicated triumph in the last presidential decision.”
He said in opposition to the said “deprecatory, decrying, deceptive and intemperate disparaging explanation, as distributed in a different print, electronic and online media stages” he had “never been on the security watch rundown of the UAE, or some other nation, so far as that is concerned.
“That claimant was at the time of the said publication in the UAE and was never accosted by any security agencies over the said frivolous and baseless allegations.”
He appealed to God for among his eight petitions, a revelation by the court that the productions made by Onochie by means of her online life accounts on May 7, and May 20, 2019, concerning and addressing his “are absolutely false, outlandish, unwarranted and slanderous of the inquirer, and damaging to his notoriety.”
He additionally looked for a request convincing the respondent to make a withdrawal of, and a statement of regret to him “for the said hostile twitter and facebook productions on similar stages, likewise to be distributed in three national papers with wide course inside the nation and furthermore communicate on AIT, Channels and NTA TV channels”.
He additionally looked for a request convincing her to keep in touch with him, “a letter of open conciliatory sentiment for the said hostile twitter and facebook distributions.”
The claimant likewise looked for a request of never-ending directive limiting her whether without anyone else, her hirelings, operators, privies, doles out, companions and/or agents, or generally howsoever, from further posting such “hostile and derogatory material or some other type of disparaging articulations against his individual.
He requested a request guiding the litigant to him “the whole ofN2,500,000,000,000 ” “representing general, aggravated, punitive and exemplary damages over the untold embarrassment, derision, public ridicule, odium, obloquy, marital disharmony, mental agony and psychological trauma which the defendant’s publications have caused the claimant.”
