A human rights lawyer and activist, Olatunji Abayomi, has demanded a
retraction of a report against the National Leader of the All
Progressives Congress (APC) Asiwaju Bola Tinubu by an online journal,
Sahara Reporters titled: “Threat of perjury trial: How Jonathan
Blackmailed Bola Tinubu before 2011 Presidential election”. In his
letter, Abayomi argued that the report is not only false, but
defamatory.
“We demand a statement acknowledging your error of trying to damage
our client’s reputation as well as a statement regretting the same. “Please this matter must be attended to immediately otherwise you run
the risk of multiple civil suits all over the world in defence of our
client, “Abayomi wrote.
The lawyer said the report attempted to defame Tinubu’s reputation by
spreading old, utterly false gossip in hope of wrongly destroying his
prospects. Sahara Reporters, he said, failed to inquire diligently about
Tinubu’s educational records to know that he was an award-winning
alumnus of the Chicago State University. Also, there was no charge at
the Federal High Court numbered FHC/ABJ/CR/04/2011, nor was Tinubu tried
or convicted.
Besides, Abayomi noted that the United States Embassy, in its
February 4, 2003 response to an inquiry by the Inspector-General of
Police, stated that there is “no criminal arrest, records, wants or
warrants for Bola Ahmed Tinubu.” “If you had checked readily available
records, you would have found that he travels periodically to the United
States. Had he been engaged in criminal wrongdoing, he would have been
ineligible for entry into that country,” Abayomi wrote.
Abayomi also recalled that the Code of Conduct charge against Tinubu
was dismissed. “Sahara Reporters appears to have surrendered itself to
propagate old allegations to serve the same old failing antagonists who
can find no serious grounds beyond their noisy interests,” the lawyer
added.
Source: VANGUARD
Post a Comment