ABEOKUTA — FORMER Ogun State Governor, Chief Olusegun Osoba and Alliance for Democracy [AD] chieftain, Otunba Dipo Dina have given the state Commissioner of Information & Strategy, Mr. Niran Malaolu seven days to apologise and retract his statement that they instigated the Ilaro riot and pay them N500 million as damages.
Besides, the Alliance for Democracy (AD) said the “persecution” of Chief Osoba by the PDP government in the state and similar actions targeted at AD leaders were indicative of the determination of the Federal Government to cow all opposition and foist a one-party structure on Nigeria.
Counsel to the two AD chieftains, Mr. Adeniyi Akintola [SAN] in a letter to Mr. Malaolu dated 28th October said that the allegation against his clients had caused a serious dent on their personalities and that failure to meet the demands within the stipulated seven days would lead to legal action.
Mr. Akintola (SAN) in the letter entitled “Defamation of Character” said that Malaolu should cause the apology and retraction to be published on the front pages of all national newspapers in which the offending allegations were published and to make public announcements of same three times daily on the state government-owned OGTV and OGBC for seven consecutive days.
This he said was because the allegation against Chief Osoba and Otunba Dina were unfounded and malicious and that it was obviously a political game aimed at tarnishing their images.
He explained that Otunba Dina was far away in Port Harcourt that day and that it was practically impossible for him to also be in Ilaro at the same time, while Chief Osoba’s attendance of a political meeting in Ilaro that day could not be synonymous with the students’ unrest.
Mr. Akintola wrote: “You alleged that our clients, Chief Olusegun Osoba and Mr. Dipo Dina were privy to, and in fact instigated the students’ unrest that took place at Ilaro on Octowber 19, 2004 during which the state governor and his wife were purportedly attacked separately and at various times.
“We will have you know that this is a serious dent on the personalities of our clients, moreso when the allegations are unfounded, malicious, vexatious and false in every material particular.
“It is very obvious that this is a political game and a dirty one at that. It is a very cheap way of making your government gain popularity and unnecessary public sympathy at the expense of our clients.
“In view of the above, our clients have instructed us to demand and we hereby demand that you retract all the statements credited to you within seven days of the receipt of this letter on the front pages of all the national newspapers with which you disseminate your false allegation.
“You are to write letters of apology to our clients within seven days of the receipt of this letter, as well as a three times daily retraction of your public announcements on the OGTV and OGBC for seven consecutive days.
And in a communique, the South West caucus of the AD alleged government propelled “new wave of state-sponsored terrorism as a reversion to the era of military dictatorship.”
It cited non-disbursement of local government allocation to Lagos State, the harassment of Lagos State traffic officials by agents of the Federal Road Maintenance Agency (FERMA), the killing of an AD member in the last bye-election in Ondo and what it called persecution of Chief Osoba.
The AD said Nigeria was disintegrating from the ideals of democracy into the abyss of civilian dictatorship and repressive tyranny.
![[Image]](http://news.biafranigeriaworld.com/..\..\..\images\vlogo.gif){kind=small}
