The Federal Capital Territory High Court in Wuse, Abuja, on Tuesday overruled the objection of a blogger, Sir Don Ubani, regarding documents sought to be tendered in a N5 billion defamation suit instituted by Abia State Governor, Dr. Alex Otti, against him.
Justice N. K. Nwosu-Iheme of the FCT High Court overruled the objection of the blogger’s lawyer, S. M. Oluebube, following submissions by Dr. Sonny Ajala SAN, Otti’s counsel.
Naijaonpoint reports that the governor, in his writs of summons seen by Naijaonpoint, prayed the court to direct the defendant to pay the claimant general damages of N5,000,000,000.00 for the alleged loss of reputation, damaged character, tarnished profile as a financial expert, erosion of goodwill, fractured political leadership standing, diminished public esteem, and psychological and emotional trauma suffered by him, allegedly due to the falsehoods and malicious defamatory online news publication titled ‘Governor Alexander Otti Of Abia State Should Be Clapped For’, dated 26-09-2024’, published against him on 26/9/2024 on the defendant’s Facebook Wall, with 6.3K followers, and further republished on the defendant’s blog known as ‘equityreporters.ng’ on the same day.
In the said publication, the blogger is accused of stating that the governor, through his proxies, bought two near-moribund hotels in Umuahia.
The blogger was said to have added, “With what Governor Otti has done at Umuehim, Umuguru, and the two hotels at Umuahia, one doubts if Governor Alexander Otti has not done the greatest.”
Ajala also urged the court to restrain the defendant from further writing and/or syndicating disparaging and false materials against the governor, while ordering the blogger to tender an unreserved apology to the governor in four national dailies.
At the resumed hearing on Tuesday, Ajala presented Architect Uche Uche as the governor’s first prosecution witness.
Ajala sought to tender two documents through NAIJAONPOINT as evidence:
However, the defense counsel raised an objection to the tendering of the two documents, insisting that the claimant failed to front-load the documents alongside his writ of summons.
Ajala, however, urged the court to discountenance the objection, arguing that the two documents sought to be tendered satisfied the settled legal requirements and were relevant to his defamation case.