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The former governor of Ekiti State, Kayode Fayemi, has sued Arise Television and Kayode Otitoju, a former commissioner for information in the state, for N500 million over the claimed defamation and intentional airing of infringing broadcast against him.
For allegedly defamatory comments made by the commissioner while serving as an analyst on Arise TV on November 22, 2022, the former governor is seeking N250 million from Arise TV and another N250 million from Otitoju.
Fayemi filed suit against the first defendant (Otitoju) on January 25, 2023, in an Ekiti State High Court. The lawsuit, HAD/10/2023, was made available to reporters on Sunday by Fayemi’s attorney, Babatunde Oke. In it, Fayemi is seeking an apology from Otitoju for his defamatory statements while serving as an analyst on Arise TV.
A public apology to Fayemi was also required, as well as its publication in at least three Nigerian national newspapers and uploading to online platforms. He is demanding N20 million in legal fees and costs from the defendants. He is also asking the court for a permanent injunction to prevent them from publishing defamatory publications or statements against him. In addition to the 10% interest added to the judgement amount from the date, it was delivered until the date it was paid.
The defendants’ false and reckless, malicious statements, which Fayemi described as mere fabrication and falsehood orchestrated to taint his good record and image as an upright man and to destroy his future political career, exposed him and brought him “unwarranted embarrassment, public ridicule, opprobrium, odium, and unprecedented disrepute,” he said.
Fayemi said that during the programme, Otitoju called him “the problem we have in Ekiti” and made various defamatory statements about him.
Among these, he claimed, was the allegation that he had conspired with the judge of the Federal High Court’s Ado Ekiti Judicial Division, Justice Babs Kuewumi, to commit a perversion of justice in the case brought by All Progressives Congress gubernatorial candidate Kayode Ojo challenging Biodun Oyebanji’s primary victory on January 27, 2022.