Osoba drags Okurounmu to court, demands N3bn as damages
Former Governor of Ogun state, Chief Olusegun Osoba, has dragged a chieftain of the Afenifere, Senator Femi Okurounmu to an Ogun state High Court sitting in Abeokuta over alleged libellous publications against him.
Osoba, through his lawyer, Chief Wole Olanipekun (SAN) on Friday, dragged Okurounmu before the court demanding N3 billion as aggravated and exemplary damages.
Osoba also asked the defendant to retract the controversial publications in two national newspapers.
The matter with suit number AB/493/2019, dated November 8, according to a copy of the suit obtained, the defendant granted interviews to Daily Independent Newspaper and Saturday Sun Newspaper, where he maliciously maligned the person and character of the claimant.
It reads in part: “A sum of three billion naira on the footing of malicious publication made by the defendant against the claimant in the Daily Independent Newspaper and Saturday Sun Newspaper, respectively published on July 11 and July 20, particularly the words published and disseminated against the claimant by the defendant appearing on pages 13-15 of the Daily Independent Newspaper of July 2019, where the defendant caused to be published, circulated and disseminated concerning and in relation to the claimant.
“In the said publication of Daily Independent Newspaper, Okurounmu said those who know Osoba know that he has always been a double faced politician. On one face, he will want people to see him as a progressive, on the other face; he is working with the security forces. Osoba has always been an agent of the security forces.
“He has one leg in the military and the other leg in the progressives’ camp. If you have never been told that, I am telling you now. So, when he narrated what he went through in his book, of course, for anybody who is a double agent, such person will get into trouble.”
El-rufa’i eulogies deputy, Hadiza Balarabe
Chief Osoba sought for order of the court to direct the defendant to make and render an unequivocal retraction of the said malicious publication aforequoted on the front pages on seven consecutive editions of both Saturday Sun Newspaper and Daily Independent Newspaper
Also, he is demanding an order directing the defendant to render and tender an unreserved apology to the claimant for the said malicious and libellous publications.
The former governor is seeking an order of perpetual injunction restraining the defendant from further publishing, disseminating and granting newspaper interviews in furtherance of his continuous uttering, disseminating of causing to be disseminated libellous publications against the claimant.
No date has been fixed for hearing.
