A High Court of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) has reserved judgement in a N500 million libel suit instituted by a former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama, against a career ambassador, Lilian Onoh.
The court will also deliver a verdict in a counterclaim filed by Ambassador Onoh against Onyeama, in which she is asking for N2 billion in compensation against the former minister.
Justice Keziah Ogbonnaya, after taking arguments in the final addresses of the parties in the suit, reserved judgement and announced that the date for its delivery would be communicated to them.
Onyeama had sued Ms. Onoh, an ambassador in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who is also a sister to his former wife, for libel, alleging that she defamed him in several memos she sent to then-President Muhammadu Buhari while he was the minister.
The former minister asked the trial judge, Keziah Ogbonnaya, to award him N500 million as compensation against Onoh and two other defendants.
However, in the counterclaim, Ms. Onoh, who is the first defendant in the libel suit filed in 2023, urged the court to “impose a N2 billion” fine on Onyeama “for causing total upheaval and emotional trauma” to her by his “malicious suit.”
According to Onoh, a former Nigerian ambassador to Namibia and Haiti, Mr. Onyeama lodged the malicious suit as “part of his 40-year vendetta to avenge his humiliation of being divorced by” her “sister due to unhinged psychiatric behaviour.”
Onoh alleged large-scale stealing by staff members of the foreign service of funds belonging to Nigerian embassies and high commissions.
While adopting his final written arguments, Onyeama’s lawyer, Agada Elachi, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), urged the court to impose N500 million in damages against Ms. Onoh and other defendants – Akelicious Media Company and Newswire Law & Event Magazine – for “their defamatory publications against” his client.
The claimant also sought an order “compelling the defendants” to apologise to him and “retract the defamatory words uttered” against him.
He also sought “an order of perpetual injunction restraining the defendant… from further uttering, writing… defamatory words against the claimant.”
Elachi said the former minister had discharged the burden of proof placed on him by providing “credible evidence” in substantiating his claims.
The claimant’s lawyer pointed out that the defendants “failed woefully to raise a formidable defense” to Mr. Onyeama’s claims.
Elachi dismissed the first defendant’s arguments challenging the propriety of the mode of service of court filings on her outside of her base in the United States.
He equally contended that Ms. Onoh’s assertion that Mr. Onyeama did not swear to the witness statement on oath that accompanied his suit has no legal basis.
Elachi further said Ms. Onoh was precluded from questioning Mr. Onyeama’s identity because she did not tender any evidence to refute the former minister’s identity in the suit.
In the closing arguments, Ms. Onoh’s lawyer, J.O. Okpor, said the former minister failed to prove “any defamatory words’ ‘ used against him by his client.
He wondered why Onyeama would seek to “gag the whole world from ever saying things against” him by “judicial sleight of hand.”
Okpor argued that Ms. Onoh, who testified in the suit via Zoom from her residence in Texas in the US, “proved beyond reasonable doubt that” Mr. Onyeama “had no legal basis in law for the suit he filed.”
In the final written address, Okpor contended that the service of “an expired” court document on Ms. Onoh’s former lawyer in the case, “Richard Aneke, in September 2023, was unlawful.”
He said the order by the judge, Amb. Ogbonnaya, to serve Ms. Onoh court processes in court through her lawyer without any application by Mr. Onyeama was illegal.
The lawyer further said the judge’s refusal to determine the propriety of Mr. Onyeama’s libel suit until after final written addresses demonstrates the illegality that has trailed the adjudication of the matter.
Aside from the N2 billion compensation being sought by Ms. Onoh, she is also urging the court to “refund all court fines” she had paid as well as the “enormous cost of providing Zoom, which should have been paid for by the court.”
“The court is asked to grant the 1st defendant’s request for legal costs totaling N15 million, and personal costs of USD160,000 being the lost income incurred by her since July 2023 when she became seized with this malicious suit by the claimant,” Mr. Okpor prayed the court.
Finally, he urged the court to dismiss Mr. Onyeama’s suit and allow Ms. Onoh’s counterclaim.
Meanwhile, the other defendants in the case did not put up any legal representation during the hearing.
After listening to the lawyers’ arguments, the judge adjourned the suit for judgement, adding that a date for the verdict would be communicated to the parties.
