By Adedayo Odulaja
Do you know COSON chairman, Tony Okoroji filed a case asking the court to order Onyeka Onwenu to pay him a whopping 750m?
Well, now you know. The latest however is that a Lagos State High Court has thrown out the case which came out of the burial of another Nigerian star musician, Christy Essien-Igbokwe both Okoroji and Onyeka having served on the committee for her burial.
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 Essien Igbokwe, is ‘unjustified, unwarranted, malicious, wicked, reckless and libellous.’
Said to have emanated from an e-mail Onwenu, widely known as the ‘Elegant Stallion’ sent to other members of the late Igbokwe burial committee, the piece accused Okoroji of diverting N3m donation into his private bank account.
Apart from asking the court to order Onwenu to pay him N750m as general damages, Okoroji prayed the defendant to tender a full page ‘unreserved apology to be published in every edition of The Vanguard, The Guardian and www.vanguardngr for seven consecutive days.’
In her judgment, 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.
‘In the absence of any evidence of what CW2, CW3 and CW4 think about the claimant upon reading the publication, which has affected the good name, reputation and estimation in which the claimant stands in the society of their fellow citizens, it cannot therefore be said that the claimant has been defamed.
‘After a careful consideration of all the materials before me, I have come to the conclusion that the claimant has not been able to establish that the e-mail alleged to have been sent to members of the of the committee by the defendant defamed him.’
