A Lagos High Court sitting
in Ikeja today Thursday, June 30, 2016 as ordered Onyeka Onwenu to pay the sum
of five million naira as damages for defamation of character to Chief Tony
Okoroji, former President of PMAN and Chairman, Copyright Society of Nigeria
(COSON).
Delivering judgment in Suit
No: ID/935/12 filed in 2012, Hon Justice I. O. Akinkugbe (Mrs.) also ordered
Ms. Onwenu to tender an unreserved public apology to Chief Okoroji to be
published in Vanguard Newspapers and www.vanguardngr.com the website of Vanguard Newspapers.
The war between Okoroji and
Onyeka dates back to 2011 when Okoroji went to court following the publication
of an article in the Vanguard newspaper edition of October 14, 2011 which he
considered a deliberate attempt to malign or defame him.
According to the COSON
chair, the article claiming he diverted N3m donated by the Cross Rivers State
Government towards the final burial of Christy Essien Igbokwe, is ‘unjustified,
unwarranted, malicious, wicked, reckless and libellous.’
The case was however thrown
out by a Lagos State High Court. Back then, Justice I.O. Kasali who ruled in
the case, submitted: ‘For words to be defamatory of a party, the said words
must have lowered that party in the estimation of right-thinking members of the
public and there must be evidence of this from a person whose views of that
person have been so adversely affected’.
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