A High Court sitting in Benin City yesterday awarded N25 million to Governor Adams Oshiomhole as damages for a libelous publication by Dockland Communications Limited, publishers of News of the People magazine.
In suit no B/556/2011, Justice Efe Ikponmwonba ruled that
Dockland Communications failed to prove the veracity of the publication of the
magazine in 2011, which was carried on the front page and at page 19, with the
headline, “Oshiomhole’s sex power exposed: Impregnates young girl six months
after death of wife”.
The governor had taken Dockland Communications Limited, publishers of News of the People to court after failing to retract the said story and meet the conditions of apologizing to him as contained in a letter to them by his lawyers, Ken Mozia and Associates.
Oshiomhole who asked the court to award him N250 million in damages maintained that the defendant, among other things, falsely wrote that he bought a jeep for the said girl whom he was alleged to have impregnated and that he was interfering in the academic activities of Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma, on behalf of the girl. The publication also indicated that the governor used sexual performance enhancement drugs.
During the trial, the governor had under cross-examination said “I am a public officer, and as you have rightly pointed out as a governor, what I do or fail to do is important. My character is important and people’s opinion of my personal life is important. My children are still in agony.
The magazine
published this just a few months after my wife passed away and this publication
coincided with my daughter’s wedding. A governor who I invited for the wedding
asked me if I was the one going to wed or my daughter. Your image as a public
officer is very important’’.
Reacting to the judgment, counsel to Governor Oshiomhole, Barrister Femi Owootori of Ken Mozia and Associates Chambers said: “We as solicitors to the governor wrote a letter to the company asking for a retraction of the publication. But the newspaper stuck to its gun and refused to retract the publication. So we gave the necessary notice and took legal action to sue for libel and the case has been on.
“We closed our case rather than come in for defence, the defendants said they
were resting their case on the claimants case which is a strategy suggesting
that the claimant had made no case.
But unfortunately for them when the
judgment was being delivered it was exhaustively analysed. Though our claim was
for N250 million, considering the status of the person against whom the
publication was made, the court awarded N25million and N10,000 cost because the
court found as a fact the publication was a tissue of lies”
Dailytimes
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