Daily Independent Online.
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Thursday, July 08, 2004.
Dikko loses bid to stop Shinkafi’s N100m libel suit
By Alex Oni
Correspondent, Lagos
Former boss of the
defunct National Security Organisation (NSO) and one time vice presidential
candidate of All Peoples Party (APP), Alhaji Umaru Shinkafi, on Wednesday won a
major legal victory, as a Lagos High Court threw out a preliminary objection
filed against a N100 million libel suit he filed against Alhaji Umaru Dikko,
Second Republic minister of Transport.
Shinkafi had gone
before Justice Olufumilayo Atilade of the Lagos High Court complaining about an
interview Umaru Dikko granted a magazine shortly after the 1983 coup that
toppled the civilian regime of former President Shehu Shagari.
Umaru Dikko
allegedly told the magazine that Shinkafi, being the NSO, knew the
Major-General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd) led coup of 1983 was in the making, but
failed to notify the Federal Government.
Consequently,
Shinkafi asked the court to order Dikko to pay him N100 million as damages
suffered as a result of the alleged libellous publication.
However, in the
cause of the proceedings, lawyer to Dikko, Mr. Pius Nnoli, filed a preliminary
objection to the suit, asking the court to strike out the suit in its entirety
as it lacked merit.
Counsel to
Shinkafi, Mr. Suleiman Zubair, however, opposed the application, arguing that
the defence counsel should have filed his objection at the on-set of the
proceedings, and not at a time the matter had reached the stage of trial,
moreso, when the plaintiff had closed his case.
He described the
objection as an abuse of court process, lacking merit and could not be
supported in law and therefore urged the court to dismiss it.
In a counter
argument, lawyer to Dikko, Mr. Nnoli argued that an objection can be raised at
any point before judgment and pointed out that it was trite law that issue of
jurisdiction could be raised at any time during trial.
He argued that
joining Dikko in the matter was superfluous and improper because he did not
commit the allege offence for which he was being sued and neither did he
authorise Mr. Mahmud Mega (third defendant in the suit and journalist who
allegedly conducted an interview with Dikko), to publish any interview on his
behalf.
Nnoli said at best,
the matter could be treated as slander and not as libel because Dikko was not
the person who wrote the article, which led to the suit.
In her ruling,
Justice Atilade said, “I am of the view that the proper course opened to
the first defendant (Dikko) is to call his witnesses if any, thereafter, raise
issues contained in the notice of preliminary objection in his final address.
“There is no
provision under Nigerian law for a no case submission in civil proceedings. I
believe the first defendant’s notice of preliminary objection is
tantamount to making a no case submission in civil proceedings. Consequently, I
find no merit in the first defendant’s preliminary objection and same is
accordingly dismissed.”
Justice Atilade has
fixed further hearing in the matter to October 5.
