A High Court, sitting in Benin-City,
Edo State, has awarded twenty-five million naira damages in favour of Governor
Adams Oshiomhole.
This is for damages in a libel suit
instituted against Docklands Communication and Loye Amzat, publishers and
Editor of the News of the People Magazine.
Governor Oshiomhole had taken the
celebrity weekly magazine to court requesting 250million naira as compensation
for a report with the headline, ‘Oshiomhole’s sex power exposed: Impregnates
young girl six months after death of wife’’.
Testifying in the suit, the Edo
State Governor said the defendant falsely wrote that he interfered with the
academic life of a female student of Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma.
Governor Oshiomhole maintained that
the publication caused psychological trauma to his family, coming few months
after the death of his wife.
Ruling on the matter, Justice Efe
Ikponmwen, held that Oshiomhole proved that the publication was libellous, Justice
Ikponmwen said though the public should know the life of a public officer, such
information must be done in good faith and within the law.
He ordered the publisher to pay 25 million naira as
damages, and retract the said report in a conspicuous manner in an edition of its
magazine.
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