A Former Vice President of Nigeria, Atiku Abubakar, has narrated before a High Court of the Federal Capital Territory, how President Muhammadu Buhari’s aide, Lauretta Onochie, caused him mental and psychological trauma through what he termed as fabricated offensive electronic messages.
In a witness statement on oath the Peoples Democratic Party’s 2019 presidential candidate deposed to before an FCT High Court, Atiku decried that all the social media posts against him came at a time he was challenging President Buhari’s re-election before the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal, insisting that Onochie’s action was out of malice and bad faith.
He, therefore, asked the court to bring Onochie to justice over a post she shared through her Twitter handle on May 7 and on Facebook on May 20.
In a libel suit filed by Mike Ozekhome on behalf of Atiku, is demanding for the sum of N2.5billion as damages over a psychological trauma which the defendant’s publications have caused him.
According to Atiku, Onochie had in the post, portrayed him as someone on the watch list of security operatives in the United Arab Emirates, and who had travelled to shop for terrorists in the Middle East.
The former Vice President said the defendant failed to retract her allegations, despite a letter wrote to her on May 14 to that effect and rather than to apologize to him, Onochie, in a follow-up post on Facebook on May 20, “portrayed him as a depressed person who is not fit to hold any office.
Aside praying for an order of perpetual injunction restraining the defendant from further making offensive posts against him, Atiku also sought an order compelling the defendant to make a retraction and an apology to him for the said offensive Twitter and Facebook publications on the same platforms and also to be published in three national newspapers with wide circulation including AIT, Channels, and NTA.
