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Onyeka gets the better of Okoroji in N750m suit

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Defiant Onyeka Onwenu says she won’t apologise to Tony Okoroji

The hope of Chairman, Board of Copyright Society of Nigeria, Chief Tony Okoroji to have musician, Onyeka Onwenu pay him N750 million for what he said was a malicious article against him has been squashed by a Lagos State High Court sitting at the Tafawa Balewa Square.

The court dismissed the N750m libel suit filed by Okoroji against Onwenu.

Okoroji had approached the court claiming that Onwenu was responsible for an article in national newspaper on October 14, 2011 which Okoroji considered to be a deliberate attempt to malign or defame him.

In the said publication, which Okoroji described as “unjustified, unwarranted, malicious, wicked, reckless and libellous,” it was claimed that he diverted N3m donated by the Cross Rivers State Government towards the final burial of the late Nigerian musician, Christy Essien Igbokwe.

The said article had been published after Onwenu sent an email to members of the late Igbokwe burial committee accusing Okoroji of diverting N3m donation into his private bank account.

Both Okoroji and Onwenu served on the committee for the final burial of Igbokwe.

Okoroji in the suit asked for an order directing Onwenu to pay him N750m as general damages and to tender a full page “unreserved apology to be published in every edition of the of two national publications for seven consecutive days.”

But Onwenu, through her lawyer, Mr. Fred Agbaje, in response to Okoroji’s claims, argued that Okoroji failed to link Onwenu to the said newspaper publication.

Agbaje, who pointed out that the email sent by Onwenu was to members of the late Igbokwe’s burial committee and not to the newspapers, maintained that Onwenu “was duty-bound to comment on issues affecting the well-being and smooth running of the committee and this she did by complaining to the claimant and other members of the committee.”

The trial judge, Justice I.O. Kasali, in her judgment, said though she had no doubt that “the words complained of, in their ordinary meaning, and also with reference to the circumstances in which they were written, were libellous of the claimant,” but Okoroji failed to show the evidence that the words had negatively altered a third person’s perception of him.

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