An Ogun State High Court, sitting in Isabo Abeokuta, on Friday has found the Gbegande of Ososa, in Odogbolu local government area of the State, Oba Adetoye Mojeed Alatishe guilty of libel, in a suit filed by Alhaji Sulaiman Adegunwa, Chairman, Rite Foods Limited.
The Court therefore awarded a sum of N500 million damage and N500,000 cost, against the monarch.
The trial judge, Justice E. O. Osinuga, in judgement, ordered Oba Alatishe to publish a retraction of the libelous publication and apology in the The Punch, The Nation and This Day Newspapers, as well as the City People Magazine and Obanta Newsday.
She also restrained the defendant perpetually from further perpetrating or carrying out any disparaging/libelous publication against the Claimant.
Adegunwa, case with suit no: HCJ/205/19; argued that Oba Alatishe in a petition, written to the Ogun State Governor, State Commissioner for Urban and Physical Planning, State Commissioner for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, Special Adviser for Urban and Physical Planning, Commissioner of Police Ogun State, as well as the Chairman of Odogbolu Local Government; dated 7th January, 2019, claimed that Alhaji Sulaimon Adebola Adegunwa threatened and vowed at a gathering to demolish the entire resuscitated and reconstructed Oba Gbegande Market (by turning same to a palace while the present palace will be forcefully turned to a town hall) through the office of the Special Adviser on Urban and Physical Planning headed by Mr.
Adewolu whom Alhaji Adegunwa was said to have referred to as his 'son'.
"This threat if not urgently checked and nipped in the bud is capable of leading to a monumental breach of the peace, serious confrontation and total breakdown of law and order."
Adegunwa said, the offensive publication was also made in the City People Magazine Edition of 7th August 2019 with a deleterious caption, “Petition against the threat by Alhaji Sulaimon Adebola Adegunwa to embark on acts likely to cause monumental breach of the peace and total breakdown of law and order in Ososa, Leguru Local Council Development A Area, Ogun State in connivance with the state officials."
"The defendant also did publish without ambiguity egregious, damaging and disparaging words in the correspondence on page 6 of Volume 27, No. 8, Edition of the Obanta August 2019, which were false".
The claimant pleads that the defendant did not stop at the disparaging and odious publication and re-publication of the
defamatory words in his (defendant) letter of 7th of January, 2019 but proceeded to further defame the claimant on subsequent instances.
"The claimant avers that the said publications and re-publication were malicious, oppressive, spiteful and calculated to injure, disparage and lower the esteem with which right thinking members of the local and international communities in general regarded and held the claimant".
"Further, the defendant published the said sensational tirades out of malice, malevolence and spite and without any justifiable cause or basis whatsoever, thereby discrediting and disparaging the good image and reputation of the claimant without any justification whatsoever".
"The claimant states that by the publication of the said offensive,
malicious and spurious words, he (claimant) has been greatly injured and has continued to suffer injuries in character and reputation as a consequence of which the claimant has been brought into grave public ridicule, hatred, scandal, odium and contempt in the estimation of right .thinking members of the society".
"The claimant also suffered and continues to suffer extreme embarrassment, discomfort and distress as a result of the loss of reputation occasioned by the libelous publication of the defendant against his person".
Adegunwa prayed the Court against the defendant are for "a declaration that the words employed by the Defendant in his letter of 7th January 2019 and his publication and republication in the City People Magazine Edition of 7th August 2019 and the Obanta Newsday of August 2019 constitute libel against the Claimant".
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