Citing character defamation, Minister of Transportation, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi, has written to a former Minister of Aviation, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode and an aide to Governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti State, Mr. Lere Olayinka, over his alleged ownership of $43m (N13b) seized by the Economic and Financial Crime Commission in Ikoyi, Lagos.
The Minister in a letters dated April 14, 2017, through his lawyer, Mr. Lateef Fagbemi (SAN), alleged that he had been defamed by the claims of the two men.
Amaechi is demanding N500m from Fani-Kayode as compensation for the alleged malicious posts by the former minister on his twitter handle on April 14.
According to his lawyer, the Minister is also demanding two separate sums of N750m totalling N1.5billion from Olayinka as compensation for the alleged “malicious” posts by the Ekiti State Governor’s spokesperson on his facebook timeline and twitter handle on April 14.
In his letter to Fani-Kayode, Fagbemi said it was wrong for the former minister to assume that Amaechi owned the flat and the money found in it.
Fagbemi explained that Fani-Kayode knew that he ought to approach the Land Registry, especially in Lagos State, where he said there were proper records of property owners, in order to verify the ownership of the property in question.
He said the former deliberately refused to carry out a diligent search in order to achieve a malicious aim.
Fagbemi said Fani-Kayode had claimed through his twitter handle that “The $43m is Rotimi Amaechi’s. He owns the flat (where) it was found. NIA story is fake news. NIA does not keep cash in minister’s flats.”
He said the story was a lie and that it was aimed at impeaching the integrity of his client, who he described as a two-term speaker of the Rivers State House of Assembly and a two-term governor of the same state.
Part of the letter reads: “Our client neither owns the cash nor the house where the cash was found and your story and claim are unfounded. As a matter of fact, our client does not own any house in Lagos State not to talk of keeping cash in one and your story is preposterous.
“Your twitter rant of 14/04/2014 at 04.16 was viewed by your 316. 000 followers, re-tweeted 1,209 times and made a favourite by 434 followers as of the time of writing this letter today at7.15pm and the list is increasing by the minute and same has satisfied all the conditions needed for a successful defamation case against you.
“We have our client’s mandate to state to you unequivocally that the said twitter publication constitutes libel, and is defamatory of him as same (the claim) is aimed at impugning our client’s character and credit in the eyes of right thinking Nigerians and foreigners.”
In view of this, he gave Fani-Kayode a seven-day ultimatum to tender apology to the minister and that such apology be carried by five national dailies.
Fagbemi added that Fani-Kayode should pay his client N500m damages as “compensation for the malicious and defamatory claim.”
He threatened to sue the former minister if the demands were not met within seven days.
The lawyer in two separate letters, each relating separately to facebook and twitter posts by Olayinka, demanded the sums of N750m as compensation for each of the posts.
Fagbemi quoted Olayinka as stating in the posts, “The Osborne Towers, a luxury residential complex in lkoyi, Lagos where EFCC said it found $43,449,947, £27,800 and N23,218,000 on Wednesday is owned by the Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi.
“The house was built by Alhaji Adamu Mu’azu, the former Chairman of PDP through a loan from GTBank.
“He could not repay the loan so GTB took over the house and allocated the Pent House to Mu’azu and two flats
“Rotimi Amaechi bought TWO of the flats (7A and 7B). He then gave 7A to Mo Abudu, the TV presenter, who is suspected to be his girlfriend.
But the flat 7B, where the money was found, belong (sic) to Rotimi Amaechi.
“This is believed to be cash kept for 2019 elections.
“Let’s see how the cover up game goes.”
He also accused Olayinka of falsely making adulterous imputation against his client, who he stated “contracted a valid statutory marriage within the Marriage Act, which prescribes a ‘one-man one-wife’ union.”
The letter relating to the twitter post read in part, “Your twitter post of 14/04/2014 as at 07pmtoday was viewed by not less than 12,000 followers, retweeted 38 times and made a favourite by nine followers as of the time of writing this letter.
“Please note that the list is increasing by the minute and same has satisfied all the conditions needed for a successful defamation case against you. May we state at this juncture that our client contracted a valid statutory marriage within the Marriage Act, which prescribes a ‘one man-one wife’ union.
