Tony Okoroji loses N750m libel suit against Onyeka Onwenu

A Lagos State High Court sitting at the Tafawa Balewa Square has dismissed a N750m libel suit filed by the Chairman, Board of Copyright Society of Nigeria, Chief Tony Okoroji, against a popular Nigerian musician, Mrs. Onyeka Onwenu.

Okoroji had approached the court claiming that Onwenu was responsible for an article in the Vanguard Newspapers of 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, Essien Igbokwe.

The said article had been published after Onwenu sent an e-mail 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 Vanguard, The Guardian and www.vanguardngr 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 Vanguard Newspapers publication.

Agbaje, who pointed out that the e-mail sent by Onwenu was to members of the late Igbokwe’s burial committee and not to Vanguard 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.

The judge held, “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.”