…Gets N250m Compensation
Judgement has been delivered in favour of former Rivers State governor, Sir Dr Peter Odili, in suit filed against co-authors, claiming defamation of character.
Sir Dr Odili filed libel suit against Prof. Chidi Odinkalu and Ms Ayisha Osori for alleging he co-sponsored third-term campaign by former President Olusegun Obasanjo who was President between 1999 and 2007.
Odili had said the co-authors soiled his reputation and brought him to public ridicule in their book, and asked that they pay sum of N1billion as compensation and make public apology.
Giving judgement on Monday, presiding judge of the Port-Harcourt High Court, Justice Augusta Chukwu, ordered that co-authors and defendants in the suit should pay the sum of N250million as damages and also pay N300, 000 as cost.
In their book “Too Good To Die: Third Term and the Myth of the Indispensable Man In Africa”, co-authors Prof. Odinkalu and Ms Osori had alleged that the former governor was at centre of financial operations for third term by the former president.
They said in part of the book there was “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”.
Counsel for defendants, Barrister Idaye Opi, withdrew from the case, alleging bias by presiding judge, an allegation she denied.
Speaking in an interview, one of the lead counsel to the former governor, Ifedayo Adedipe, said he felt “relieved” by the judgement.
He had said in previous interview the law should be used to reset society and expressed displeasure at way people could tarnish other people’s image.
He said the co-authors called the former governor all sorts of names including being a ‘thief’ and ‘swindler of public funds’ without ‘a shred of evidence’.
On the judgement on Monday, he said: “The judgment is that the words complained of were found to be libelous and they injured the plaintiff in his character and reputation and they damage him. The defendant(s) did not offer a shred of evidence (and) even though they pleaded that they would rely on justification they failed and they refused to attend court. They failed and refused to lead evidence and as the law stands, if you plead and you do not lead evidence it will be struck out. So the pleadings were deemed abandoned and the witness statement struck out and the court having considered the circumstance, particularly the unrepentant and rather militant posture of the defendant(s) as manifest in their pleadings, fined against them and ordered them to pay N250million as damages and then the sum of N300,000 as cost of the action”.
The court further said the co-authors were restrained from further publication of the book.
