A former Chief of Army Staff, Lt. General Onyeabo Azubuike Ihejirika (rtd.), has sued an Australian hostage negotiator, Dr. Stephen Davies, who accused him of sponsoring Boko Haram insurgents in the North-east. Ihejirika, in a libel suit filed at the Abuja High Court by his team of lawyers, Chief Nnoruka Udechukwu (SAN), Professor C.U. Ilegbune (SAN) and Ben Anechebe (SAN), is demanding N100 billion as aggravated damages for defamation.
The retired army general who left military service in January this year, said as a result of the libellous statement in question, he 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.”
After securing an order of court to serve the process abroad, his lawyers have applied to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to enable them serve Davis who lives ib Perth, Australia, with the court’s processes.
Australia and Nigeria are members of the Commonwealth and a special procedure applies when serving court processes on defendants residing in a country that is a member of the Commonwealth other than the country where the writ is issued.
Apart from the N100 billion damages, 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 for the defendant to publish forthwith a dull and unqualified retraction and apology conspicuously in the front page of THISDAY Newspaper to assuage the plaintiff for the said false malicious and libelous publication.
Ihejirika said he retired meritoriously from the military after a successful career and that he served the army without blemish.
He said: “On or about August 28, 2014, the defendant granted a multimedia and television interview broadcast to Arise Television, 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 the spoken words and publication in their ordinary meaning were understood by reasonable members of the society who listened/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.
Ihejirika also said the publication implied that he did not retire but was sacked by the President Goodluck Jonathan and that he had committed treason or treasonable felony.
The former army chief said the public which listened to the broadcast believed that he had conducted himself in a manner tantamount to breach of 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 brought into disrepute, both in Nigeria and abroad.
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