CHIEF of Staff to President Bola Tinubu, Femi Gbajabiamila, has instituted a defamation suit against Adeniyi Adeyemi, the self-styled Director-General of the controversial Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC), over alleged false and damaging claims made against him.
News Point Nigeria reports that Gbajabiamila filed the suit before the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) High Court, seeking a total of N15.2 billion in damages, including N10 billion in general damages, N5 billion in aggravated damages and N200 million as the cost of litigation.
The President’s Chief of Staff is also asking the court to compel Adeyemi to issue a full retraction and an unconditional apology to be published in five national newspapers, as well as on all social media and electronic platforms where the allegations were circulated.
The legal action followed a series of allegations made by Adeyemi, who had accused Gbajabiamila of collecting N400 million through a proxy as a condition for issuing an appointment letter into the PFIPC, an agency the Presidency has since described as non-existent.
Adeyemi had also linked the Chief of Staff to alleged attempts to use security agencies against him and made claims concerning the death of Babatunde Tanimola, whom he described as an intermediary between himself and Gbajabiamila.
However, in his statement of claim, Gbajabiamila denied all the allegations, describing them as “entirely false, baseless, malicious, reckless and wholly devoid of any factual or evidential foundation.”
“The claimant has never met the defendant, never held any meeting with him and has never authorised any intermediary, representative, agent or proxy to demand or receive money on his behalf,” the court documents stated.
Gbajabiamila said he had earlier issued a cease-and-desist letter demanding that Adeyemi withdraw the allegations, remove all videos containing the claims and publish a public apology within 72 hours.
According to the suit, rather than comply with the demand, Adeyemi granted an interview to Martins Vincent Otse, popularly known as VeryDarkMan, where he allegedly admitted that he had never personally met Gbajabiamila and that his communications were allegedly through Tanimola, who is now deceased.
Gbajabiamila further claimed that Adeyemi repeated the allegations during an interview on Channels Television’s Politics Today, anchored by Seun Okinbaloye, on July 13, without retracting his earlier statements.
The Chief of Staff is asking the court to declare that the statements made by Adeyemi were false, malicious and defamatory, and to issue an order preventing further publication of the allegations.
He is also seeking an order directing Adeyemi to keep the apology on all social media and electronic platforms for 30 consecutive days, remove all recordings and publications containing the allegations, and grant a perpetual injunction restraining further defamatory statements against him.
