Photo: Amb Lilian Onoh
Former ambassador sues Buhari’s foreign minister, perm sec for libel
Lilian Onoh, a former Nigerian High Commissioner to Namibia, has filed a libel suit in the U.S against a former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama and the ministry’s former Permanent Secretary, now at the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, Gabriel Aduda.
The suit filed by Ms Onoh’s lawyer, Steven Thornton, on 22 December, also listed Sahara Reporters, a New York-based online newspaper, and its publisher Omoyele Sowore, as defendants.
According to the plaintiff, Onyeama and Aduda used Sahara Reporters to defame her.
Onoh told the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas that Sahara Reporters in April published an article claiming that she was sacked by the Nigerian government on account of misappropriation of N50 million.
The court document reads in part:
“The article then claims that the Nigerian Federal Civil Service Commission fired Ms Onoh in 2021.
“Sahara Reporters next claimed that a ‘report by a seven-man committee indicted the controversial former Nigerian High Commissioner to Namibia over her alleged financial misappropriation while serving in the Southern African country.”
According to the alleged defamatory story, Sahara Reporters claimed Messrs Aduda and Onyeama were members of the investigative committee that indicted Ms Onoh for fraud.
In his submissions, Mr Thornton said the basis of Sahara Reporters’ article was statements and claims credited to Messrs Aduda and Onyeama about Ms Onoh.
“The reason for their making false statements about Ms Onoh was to discredit her following her reporting of corruption by those defendants,” Mr Thornton added.
“Ms Onoh had in a series of memos to then Nigerian president, Muhammadu Buhari, accused Mr Onyeama of condoning corrupt practices at the foreign ministry which he supervised.
“Specifically, as an Ambassador, Ms Onoh had reported multiple incidents of embezzlement of millions of U.S. Dollars and billions of Naira of Nigerian Government funds by various Nigerian officials.
“Further, she reported the embezzlement of $2.8 million in Red Cross Funds meant for Haiti earthquake victims as well as the egregious acts of visa racketeering against the USA and other countries in which her successor in Jamaica had engaged,” Thornton said.
The claimant’s lawyer contended that Sahara Reporters claims in the alleged offending story were false.
“Ms. Onoh was never terminated from any posting with the Nigerian government for misappropriation of funds,” the former envoy’s lawyer submitted.
