By MBACHU GODWIN, Abuja
National Chairman of Africa Democratic Congress, ADC Chief Ralph’s Okey Nwosu has dragged the suspended presidential candidate of its party, Dumebi Kachikwu to Court over defamatory statement, claiming N20 billion Naira damage.
Kachikwu was suspended by the party’s National Working Committee NWC over alleged anti party activities and misconduct.
The embattled presidential candidate was alleged to have accused Nwosu of trading off party tickets among others, especially the 2019 presidential candidate’s ticket.
The petition by Nwosu’s lawyer Bar Jackson Kargbo reads in part: “We are solicitors to Mr Ralph Okey Nwosu our Client of 4 Lusaka street Abuja, and have been instructed concerning the slanderous, libellous and traducing statements you have been making against him at many fora including press conferences and television interviews.
“You have also been spreading malicious and defamatory claim that our client has over the years been trading on the interest and mandate of the ADC.
“He takes serious exceptions when your self-inflation morphs into a crusade against his hard-earned reputation.
” In particular, we have been informed by our Client and have watched a video of the press conference held by you in your office on the ….3rd day of ……September…..2022 which was attended by numerous representatives of the media wherein you spoke the following defamatory words against our Client:
“Beyond that, my party, the ADC has been known in the past or has had this dubious distinction as the party that traded the mandate of its candidate. In recent memory, we can remember the late Mailafia who was the last presidential candidate of the party and what happened to him when on election day, the party chose to support another party having traded his mandates .
“You also repeated these false and defamatory statements against our client in some television interviews, including the interviews you granted to Channels and Arise Television Stations.
“Indeed, the defamatory comments have been communicated and are being communicated and published to millions of people in Nigeria and throughout the world and thereby damaging and/or posing a serious threat to the reputation of our client.”
“Our Client is a reputable and respected man who has spent most of his adult life serving this country and has in the process earned deserving spurs. Our Client has since been inundated by calls from Nigerians across the Federation and the globe not only expressing deep concern about our Client’s reputation but also expressing reservations about their willingness to continue to associate or do business with him.
“Besides the distress and embarrassment suffered by our Client, your defamatory, vilifying, muckraking and calumnious comments against our Client have harmed his reputation by subjecting him to public contempt, opprobrium and ridicule. You have, by your reckless, ill-conceived, malicious and outright falsehoods, lowered our client in the estimation of right-thinking members of society and have exposed him to hatred and harm”
