The bid by Barrister Idaye Opi, counsel to co-authors of book under litigation, to have a court rescind its decision restraining his clients from further publication of the book, has suffered a setback as the presiding judge in the case ruled against his motion.
Presiding judge of a Port-Harcourt High Court, Justice Augusta Chukwu, ruled against his motion for stay of interlocutory injunction at the court’s sitting on Thursday, June 27.
The presiding iudge had ruled that there should be no further publication of a book which allegedly soils the reputation of a former governor of Rivers State, Sir Dr. Peter Odili.
The co-authors of the book, Prof. Chidi Odinkalu and Ms Ayisha Osori, alleged that Dr. Peter Odili and his then Bauchi State counterpart, Adamu Muazu, co-funded a campaign for third term by former President Olusegun Obasanjo.
In the book “Too Good To Die: Third Term and the Myth of the Indispensable Man In Africa,” the co-authors alleged that Dr. Peter Odili and his then Bauchi State counterpart, Adamu Muazu, were at the centre of financial operations for third term by former President Obasanjo.
The co-authors said: “With all lines of activity terminating at the president’s table, a paper trail was not available. The corporate trail, however, disclosed a deep financial bond between the president, Senator Ararume and the governments of Bauchi and Rivers States, then ruled, respectively, by two of President Obasanjo’s closest governorship acolytes, Adamu Muazu and Peter Odili, who were at the centre of the shadowy, complex, unlawful and, almost certainly, criminal financial operations behind third term”.
They purported that former President Obasanjo wanted a third term and tried to amend the country’s constitution to extend his tenure in office.
The authors said: “When all the cost elements, including the public relations campaigns, additional incentives, the work of the JCCR and constitutional conference, as well as inevitable incentives to the security services, are added to the inducements proposed for legislators, it seems almost certain that the budget for the third term was easily in excess of $500million or half a billion dollars. None of this money was lawfully appropriated. They could only have been generated by theft, diversion or misappropriation of public resources”.
Former President Obasanjo, while launching his autobiography “My Watch” in 2015, had said that he was not behind any plan for third term.
Obasanjo said: “People say that it was obvious that I wanted a third term and I ask those who say I was behind the third term to bring concrete evidence to prove that I spearheaded it. Third term was not my agenda or intention. I didn’t mastermind third term. Those who were telling me to go on were the governors that were going to benefit from it”.
The former governor of Rivers State, Sir Dr. Peter Odili, filed a lawsuit against the authors for alleging that he co-funded a campaign for third term by former President Olusegun Obasanjo.
Odili said in the lawsuit that the co-authors of the book brought him into public ridicule and portrayed him in a bad light before reasonable people across the world, including respectable scholars in the United States of America who have read the book.
He said in the suit that the authors of the book should pay N1billion naira in damages and make a public apology.
Justice Chukwu had restrained the co-authors from further publication of the book in her ruling on an application brought by counsel to Dr. Odili, Kanu Agabi (SAN), who sought a restraining order on further publication of the book.
But counsel to the two co-authors, Barrister Opi, filed a motion for stay of the interlocutory injunction by the court.
When the court sat on June 27 over the case, the defendants’ counsel, Barrister Opi, was not in court but sent in a letter.
However, the presiding judge used the rules of court to overrule his letter and considered his argument for stay of interlocutory injunction as being taken.
She then asked the complainant’s counsel, Kanu Agabi (SAN) to reply to the defence counsel’s argument, and then gave her ruling rejecting Barrister Opi’s motion for stay of the interlocutory injunction by the court.
Justice Chukwu adjourned the case to July 17 for pre-trial.
