A former Chief of Army Staff, Lt.-Gen. Azubuike Ihejirika, has instituted a N100bn libel suit against a self-styled Australian hostage negotiator, Stephen Davies, for accusing him (Ihejirika) of sponsoring the Boko Haram insurgent group.
Ihejirika filed the suit before a Federal Capital Territory High Court in Abuja.
He is, through his team of lawyers, comprising Chief Nnoruka Udechukwu (SAN), Prof. C.U. Ilegbune (SAN), and Ben Anechebe (SAN), seeking N100bn as aggravated damages for defamation.
The plaintiff’s lawyers said their client “has suffered grievous wrong and he has been exposed to scandal, odium, ridicule, humiliation and his character, credit and reputation brought into disrepute, both in Nigeria and abroad.”
He had obtained an order of the court to serve the process on the defendant abroad.
His lawyers had also, on the strength of the court order, applied to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to enable them to serve Davis who lives in Perth, Australia.
Australia and Nigeria are members of the Commonwealth and a special procedure applies when serving court processes on a defendant.
Ihejirika is also seeking an order of perpetual injunction restraining Davis or his agents from further making defamatory comments about him.
He also seeks an order compelling the defendant to publish “a full and unqualified retraction and apology conspicuously in the front page of a newspaper to assuage the plaintiff for the said false, malicious and libelous publication.”
Ihejirika said that he retired meritoriously from the military after a successful career and that he served the army without blemish.
He stated, “On or about the 28th day of August 2014, the defendant granted a multimedia and television interview broadcast to AriseTv, which aired in Nigeria, particularly in Abuja, and subsequently published by numerous newspapers and media houses; wherein the defendant when asked during the AriseNews segment of the interview to name the sponsors of the Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria, falsely and maliciously spoke of the plaintiff in the following words, to wit: ’’There is the former Chief of Army Staff, retired January, or actually sacked by the President; he is another sponsor. I could give you the names if you like but I have no fear that these were very confident and it is in fact Boko Haram senior commanders who have been naming them. ‘’
He said that the spoken words and publication in their ordinary meaning were understood by reasonable members of the society who listened or watched the said AriseNews broadcast in Abuja, to mean that he sponsored Boko Haram, a terrorist sect, to wage war, insurrection or insurgency against Nigeria.
He also said that the publication implied that he did not retire but was sacked by the President and that he had committed treason or treasonable felony.
Ihejirika said the public who listened to the broadcast believed that he had conducted himself in a manner tantamount to breaching his oath of allegiance and service as a soldier and senior officer in the Nigerian Army.
In an affidavit he deposed to, Ihejirika said he had suffered grievous wrong and had been exposed to scandal, odium, ridicule, humiliation and that his character, credit and reputation were brought into disrepute, both in Nigeria and abroad.
