Lilian Onoh, former Nigerian High Commissioner to Namibia, filed a defamation suit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas against Geoffrey Onyeama and Gabriel Aduda.
Mr. Onyeama is the former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Nigeria and Mr. Aduda was Permanent Secretary in the ministry and now serves as Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Petroleum Resources in Abuja.
The suit filed by Ms Onoh’s lawyer, Steven Thornton, on December 22, also listed Sahara Reporters and its editor Omoyele Sowore as defendants.
The case has been assigned to Judge Jane J. Boyle for adjudication, but no hearing date has been set.
https://dockets.justia.com/docket/texas/txndce/3:2023cv02838/384566
In court documents seen by Newslodge, the plaintiff accused Messrs. Onyeama and Aduda of using Sahara Reporters, a New York-based online newspaper, to defame her.
Similarly, Ms Onoh and Mr Onyeama are locked in a fierce legal battle in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, where the former minister has sued her sumilarily for making defamatory comments in the press.
In the wake of the legal battle, Onyeama’s sister Onoh sent a petition to the National Judicial Council (NJC), asking the body to discipline the Nigerian judge handling the case for alleged bias.
Suit Genesis
In the lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas, Ms. Onoh’s attorney, Steven Thornton, said that Sahara Reporters published an article in April that said Ms. Onoh was fired by the Nigerian government. for misappropriation of N50 million.
Thornton noted that the media outlet published Onoh’s photo in the story, to ensure the subject of the story was not mistaken.
In court papers, the plaintiff’s lawyer condemned Sahara Reporters’ depiction of his client as corrupt after he informed his global audience about the diversion of funds meant for the operation of the Nigerian High Commission in Namibia.
“The article then claims that the Nigerian Federal Civil Service Commission dismissed Ms Onoh in 2021. Sahara Reporters then claimed that a ‘report by a seven-man committee accused the controversial former Nigerian High Commissioner to Namibia of his alleged financial embezzlement while serving in the Southern African Country,’” reads part of the court document.
According to the alleged defamatory story, Sahara Reporters claimed that Messrs Aduda and Onyeama were members of the investigative committee that accused Mrs Onoh of fraud.
“Sahara Reporters noted that accused Aduda and accused Onyeama were members of this committee.
“Sahara Reporters also made reference to two alleged letters regarding the dismissal of Ms Onoh that this Commission sent to Ms Onoh detailing the reasons for her dismissal. The article further stated that this Commission ordered Mrs Onoh to reimburse the Nigerian mission for all the money she had misused,” the court documents also read.
In his submissions, Mr Thornton said the basis of the Sahara Reporters article was statements and assertions credited to Messrs Aduda and Onyeama about Ms Onoh.
“The reason they made false statements about Ms. Onoh was to discredit her following her allegations of corruption by those defendants,” Thornton added.
In a series of memos to then Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, Onoh accused Onyeama of tolerating corrupt practices in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that he supervised.
“Specifically, as ambassador, Ms Onoh had reported multiple incidents of misappropriation of millions of US dollars and billions of naira of Nigerian government funds by various Nigerian officials.
“In addition, he denounced the misappropriation of $2.8 million in Red Cross funds intended for victims of the Haiti earthquake, as well as the egregious acts of visa extortion against the United States and other countries in which his successor had participated. In Jamaica”.
The plaintiff’s attorney argued that Sahara Reporters’ claims in the alleged offending article were false.
“EM. Onoh was never fired from any position in the Nigerian government for embezzlement.”
He further maintained that Mr Onyeama did not set up a seven-person committee to investigate Ms Onoh, nor did Mr Aduda head any such committee.
“In fact, no one ever set up such a committee to investigate Ms. Onoh.”
Reputational and mental injuries.
Referring to relevant US law, Thornton said that “pursuant to 28 USC and 1332,” the court has subject matter jurisdiction over the case.
“This court has personal jurisdiction over the defendants given that the alleged conduct occurred in the State of Texas.
“Venue is appropriate in this District and Division pursuant to 28 USC § 1391(b)(2) as a substantial part of the events giving rise to the claim occurring in this District and Division.”
In court papers, Ms Onoh, who served as Nigeria’s ambassador to Namibia and head of mission to Jamaica, said Mr Sowore and Sahara Reporters knew that Mr Aduda and Mr Onyeama’s “statements were false at the time they they made them to these third parties.”
The lawyer informed the court that Sahara Reporters’ publication caused immense suffering to Ms Onoh, who he said “suffered serious damage to her reputation, mental anguish and financial damages”.
“By publishing the article on their website on April 21, 2023, Defendant Sahara Reporters and Defendant Sowore published false statements about Ms. Onoh to literally everyone.”
Mr Thornton further said Mr Onyeama and Mr Aduda made statements against Ms Onoh intentionally or recklessly.
“As a result of the conduct of the accused Onyeama and Aduda, Ms Onoh suffered serious emotional and reputational harm.”
He said the media outlet knew about the falsity of the offensive statements, but went ahead and published them.
In the plaintiff’s prayers before the judge, Mr. Thornton demanded the costs of the litigation, “all other additional remedies in law and equity to which Ms. Onoh can demonstrate that she is entitled.”
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Mr. Sowore currently resides in Nigeria.
He is confined to Nigeria by a court order prohibiting him from traveling abroad due to a criminal complaint filed by the government.
But Sowore maintains that the charges were politically motivated because of his activism in mobilizing Nigerians to resist bad governance under the regime of then President Buhari.