Libel: IGP Slams N10 Billion On Sowore For Defamation |The Source

By Akinwale Kasali

Omoyele Sowore, Publisher of SaharaReporters, an online platform, is, again, on familiar grounds.

The Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, has slammed a N10 Billion Libel Suit against him for, alleged, defaming him.

The Police IG has described, as false, a media report accusing him of illegally raising funds to build a Police Training School in Nasarawa State.

Denying the August 3, 2020 report, published by SaharaReporters, the IG, through his lawyer, Dr Alex Izinyon, SAN, threatened to file a N10bn suit against the online platform and its Publisher, Sowore.

Titled, ‘Re: Defamatory publication against Mr Mohammed Abubakar Adamu, NPM, mni (current Inspector-General of Police): Demand for retraction and unequivocal apology’, Izinyon, in the August 6, 2020 pre-action letter, addressed to the United States of America address of SaharaReporters, and Sowore, also threatened to file a criminal complaint against them with relevant government agencies.

Izinyon said the IGP had given SaharaReporters and Sowore only seven days to tender “a written and unequivocal retraction with an apology carried with the same prominence on their platform and three national dailies,” failing which he would head for court.

Izinyon stated in the letter, “Our client hastens to inform you that these defamatory words in your said publications are farrago of lies, concoctions all calculated by you to bring our Client to the lowest contempt as they are a product of you and your online publication to achieve your premeditated blackmail, dubious and diabolical ends.

“We would not waste our energy here but reserve it for the appropriate time.”

This is just one out of other libel Suits hanging on the neck of Sowore.

He is already facing one against the Speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly, Rt. Hon. Mudashiru Obasa, over allegations of owning several accounts; not being a lawyer as claimed; embezzlement,  and mismanagement of Resources.

He is, also, under litigation for his publication on Senator Dino Melaye, over his University Certificate and other issues.