Former Vice President and the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, has slammed a N2.5 billion libel suit against President Muhammadu Buhari’s Special Assistant on Social Media, Lauretta Onochie.
The presidential aide had on May 7, 2019, allegedly tweeted on her Twitter handle suggesting that Atiku was on the watch list of security operatives in the United Arab Emirates and had travelled to shop for terrorists in the Middle East.
Irked by the information, Atiku had in a May 14 letter demanded an apology, retraction and payment of N500 million compensation from Onochie “to assuage” the damage allegedly caused him by her social media post.
He also threatened to sue her if she failed to accede to the demand “within 48 hours.”
Alleging that Onochie was unmoved by his demand letter, Atiku , through his counsel, Mike Ozekhome (SAN), on June 26, filed a N2.5bn suit against Onochie before the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.
In his statement of claim, Atiku noted that, “To say that the claimant is shopping for terrorists knowing same to be untrue and without any foundation is not only dishonest and reckless, but is calculated and politically designed to instigate security agents against him not only in the UAE, but across the world.”
While denying the allegations contained in the said tweet, Atiku said the tweet was “politically orchestrated” “solely to cause maximum damage” to his “high reputation” while challenging “the purported victory” of Onochie’s boss, President Buhari, in the last presidential election at the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal.
Atiku stated that rather than show “remorse by retracting her earlier publication,” Onochie further, on May 20, made “another derogatory publication and also published same globally online in the social and other print media” against his person.
Besides, the PDP presidential candidate said, sometime in May this year, he had embarked on a foreign trip to the UAE as he had done over the years, and while on the said trip, Onochie, on May 7, 2019, wrote, through her Twitter handle:
“Atiku on UAE watchlist – Security sources. Security operatives in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are keeping a close tab on a former Nigerian Vice Pres Atiku Abubakar who has been in the Middle East nation for several weeks now. What is he doing there? Me: Shopping for Terrorists?”
He told the court that “the defamatory publication” was also published by several newspapers nationwide and on several social media news.
Atiku further denied the allegations contained in the said publication, which he described as “a figment of the imagination of the defendant,” but said it portrayed him “as an evil man, mentor of terrorists, someone who has links with terrorists, and a person who is interested in destabilising the peace and unity of Nigeria”.
