The lawyer gave the former aviation minister 72 hours to tender his apology for the alleged defamation against his client.
A legal practitioner, Sam Amadi has threatened to drag the Director of Special Projects and New Media of the All Progressives Congress presidential campaign Council, Femi Fani-Kayode to court if he does not apologise for alleging that he shared a viral report about Nigeria’s Chief Justice.
The viral report said the Chief Justice, Olukayode Ariwoola disguised as he was pictured in a wheelchair at the airport on his way to London, UK to allegedly have a secret meeting with the ‘president-elect’, Bola Tinubu.
This was seen in a letter written to Fani-Kayode on his behalf by his lawyer, Opatola Victor Esq.
The lawyer gave the former aviation minister 72 hours to tender his apology for the alleged defamation against his client.
The letter alleged that Fani-Kayode lied against Amadi when he said it was his client who reported that the Chief Justice travelled to London to meet Tinubu.
The letter reads in part: “This statement is false in all material particulars. First, our client did not at any time state on any online or offline platform that the Chief Justice of the Federation or any Justice or Judge of any court in Nigeria traveled to London or anywhere in the world to meet the President-Elect, Ahmed Bola Tinubu, or any other person.
“Our client never mentioned the Chief Justice of the Federation or any Justice of the Supreme Court and has never alleged ANYTHING against either the Chief Justice or any Justice in Nigeria. You know as a matter of fact that it was the Peoples Gazette, an online national newspaper, that reported the story of the Chief Justice travelling under a disguise to London to meet the President-Elect. Our client never liked or retweeted the viral story of the Peoples Gazette, published by Mr. Samuel Ogundipe.
“The only post through which our client related to the event was a picture of a man in wheelchair passing through airport terminal. Our client posted the picture with this short note: "What is this? Who is this? Is it true?"
“The picture that went viral before our client's tweet was alleged to be the Chief Justice of Nigeria disguising through the airport. Our client did not know who the person in the wheelchair was and asked these innocent questions. After hours, when several posts clarified that the picture was of the Chief Justice of Nigeria using wheelchair through airport terminal as part of privileges for elderly passengers, our client deleted the post and tweeted thus:
"’Yesterday I posted a picture of an elder man in wheelchair who happen to be the CJN. I have deleted the tweet becos in retrospect it is not necessary. The tweet was in reference to the PG story and not intended to embarrass. I apologize to all offended by the tweet.’
“This tweet shows clearly that our client deleted the message because he considered it 'unnecessary'. He made the post in the light of the trending story by Peoples Gazette, wondering the identity of the person in the picture. When several posts confirmed the identity of the traveler, our client deleted the post because it had become unnecessary.
“In the light of these facts, there was no reason or justification for your unprovoked attack against our client and your mischievous efforts to deflect the origin and source of the allegations from the Peoples Gazette, owned by Mr. Samuel Ogundipe, and attribute it to our client.
“The obvious reason for this mischief is to damage his reputation and present him in bad light. Furthermore, your previous statements against Igbos show that your libelous statement is part of a continuing effort to mobilize state violence against our client.
“Therefore, we demand that you delete your offensive tweet, recant the libelous statement against our client in another tweet and give it the same publicity as you gave the offensive tweet.”
“TAKE NOTICE, that while looking forward to your compliance with the simple demand of this letter, be advised that we have our client's further instruction to activate all known legal process(es) against you for defamation of character; should you fail to comply with the demand of this letter within seventy-two (72) hours of its receipt through your social media accounts,” the statement added.