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The Court of Appeal, Abuja, on Tuesday upheld a defamation of character suit filed by David Aiyedogbon, a legal practitioner, against Emeka Ugwuonye, a disbarred lawyer.
Mr Aiyedogbon filed a N10 billion defamation of character suit in 2017 against Mr Ugwuonye, for accusing him of being culpable in the sudden disappearance of his estranged wife, Charity.
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He also sought an order of perpetual injunction, restraining the defendant’s agents, privies and associates from making further defamatory publications against him and his family members.
In a judgement in 2023, Justice Peter Kekemeke of the FCT High Court ruled in favour of Mr Aiyedogbon.
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Mr Ugwuonye, not satisfied with the judgement, filed an appeal at the Court of Appeal, Abuja.
Delivering judgement in the appeal, a three-member panel led by Justice Okon Abang held that the appeal was incompetent.
Grounds of appeal
The appellant (Ugwuonye) had filed an appeal in 2024 on two grounds:
“That the Certificate of Compliance filed by the defendant to certify that the printouts of his defamatory materials on social media did not contain the full particulars of the computer with which the defamatory materials were downloaded and printed.
“That his fundamental rights to fair hearing were violated when the trial court refused his application to file his statement of defence after five years and the payment of N200 each day as default fee”.
The appellant requested the court to overturn the interlocutory ruling and the substantive judgement of the FCT High Court on these grounds.
Case dismissed
After considering both parties’ briefs and oral arguments, the court resolved the two issues in favour of the respondent.
The appellate court dismissed the appeal for being incompetent.
The court, on ground one, held that “having not raised the issue of the admissibility of a document at the point of tendering the document, the document stood admitted and no ground of appeal on it could be sustained without the appellant first seeking and obtaining the leave of the Court of Appeal”.
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The court held further that “it is trite in law that any issue that did not flow from the ratio decidendi (decision) of the judgement of the lower court could not form a ground of appeal”.
On ground two, the court held that the appellant’s fundamental rights were not violated.
“The appellant had, five years ago, failed to file his statement of defence.
“You were personally involved in the case and were represented by lawyers but chose not to file any statement of defence to the serious complaints filed against you,” the court held.
The court also held that when the appellant filed a motion for leave of court to file his statement of defence, he did so without complying with a mandatory provision of the law by paying a penalty of N200 per day for all the years of default.
“You did not pay and did not attach any evidence of payment… When the law prescribes an action to be taken before an event takes place, that action becomes a condition precedence and must be complied with before the appellant’s right can be activated.”
The court acknowledged that the lower court indulged the appellant for too long.
The court cited Supreme Court authorities to support the assertion that a party could only be indulged to the extent allowed by the law.
“The failure of the appellant to comply with a mandatory provision of the law made ground two of his appeals to be incompetent,” the court held.
The court held that the appellant, trained as a lawyer, abandoned the legal practice to shamefully and recklessly engage in blackmailing people on social media without an iota of evidence.
It further held that the appellant had enough time to engage in social media activities but had no time to file his statement of defence for as long as five years, against offences committed by him on social media.
The Justice Abang-led panel upheld the decisions of the FCT High Court and also ordered the appellant, Mr Ugwuonye, to pay the respondent, Mr Aiyedogbon, an additional cost of N500,000.
Background
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that Mr Aiyedogbon filed a defamatory suit in 2017 before Justice Kekemeke of the FCT High Court regarding some of Mr Ugwuonye’s social media publications.
Mr Aiyedogbon told the court that Mr Ugwuonye published some defamatory statements on 3 July, 5 July, 7 and 9 July 2016 against him on a social media platform called ‘Dues Process Advocates.’
Mr Ugwuonye was ordered to pay N100 million naira only to Mr Aiyedogbon as damages for his false, reckless and unfounded statements against him.
He was also ordered to pay N500,000, which is the cost of litigation.
