Juliana Taiwo
9 November 2008
Abuja — President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua, has directed his lawyers to sue the Leadership newspapers for libel over what he termed "malicious rumours and outright falsehood" over his health.
Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Mr. Olusegun Adeniyi, said in a statement yesterday that the planned legal battle against the Leadership newspapers was in furtherance to the President's belief in the rule of law.
"In keeping with his commitment to upholding the rule of law at all times, Yar'Adua has directed his lawyers to take appropriate legal action against the Leadership newspaper and pursue the case to its logical conclusion", he said
The weekend title of the newspaper, Leadership Weekend, had yesterday published that Yar'Adua, has "fallen critically ill and this has prevented him from attending public functions in the last two days including Jumma'at prayer at the National Mosque Friday and 4th Africa/German Forum at Sheraton Hotel."
Adeniyi said: "Since the inception of the present administration, its political opponents and their allies in the media have persistently assailed the nation with malicious rumours and outright falsehoods about Yar'Adua's state of health.
"Well after Yar'Adua had personally addressed the so-called ambiguities about his health on national television, affirming that while, like all humankind, he was by no means immune to ill-health, but fit enough to lead Nigeria effectively; the political opposition and their cronies in the media have willfully refused to let the issue go.
"The regular fare of baseless rumours, speculations and malevolent lies about the President's health and its alleged effect on his ability to govern came to a head this morning (yesterday) when the Leadership newspaper published on its front-page, a manifestly false report titled: "Yar'Adua Sick Again".
Adeniyi insisted in his statement that: "There is no truth in the entire report and the lies on which it hangs are so easy to disprove that the only reasonable conclusion is that the publishers of the newspapers ran the report in furtherance of their reprehensible efforts to embarrass the President and destabilise his administration.
"If it had any regard for the truth at all and made the least effort to confirm the veracity of the assertions in its report, Leadership newspaper would know that the claim that "Yar'Adua has not attended any public function in the last two days" is a big lie.
"It is one of the creeds of the journalism profession that comment is free but facts are sacred. If Leadership subscribes to this creed at all, it would not have published a patently false report about the President's "absence" from yesterday's (Friday) Jumma'at prayers at the National Mosque or from the ongoing Germany-Africa Forum at the Sheraton Hotel, Abuja.
"The truth is that the President is in good health and has been attending to all his official duties in full view of the media in the past week. Yesterday (Friday), he participated in the International Investors Forum chaired by Baroness Lynda Chalker at the Banquet Hall of the State House before going to the National Mosque for Jummat prayers. He arrived at the Sheraton Hotel at about 3.30pm to receive President Horst Kohler of Germany and other Heads of State participating in the Germany-Africa Forum and was there until well after seven o'clock in the evening.
"Yar'Adua was at the Sheraton Hotel again this morning (yesterday) for today's (yesterday) session of the Forum. All these events were covered by the media and Yar'Adua will attend a State Banquet for participants in the Forum later this evening (last night). This is hardly a schedule that could be kept by a man who "has fallen critically ill" as alleged by Leadership newspaper."
The Presidential spok-esman added that: "While Yar'Adua fully believes that a free and unfettered press is essential to the growth and entrenchment of democracy in Nigeria, he is equally of the view that the propagation of spiteful and malicious falsehood must not be allowed to become an acceptable weapon of political opposition in our country. "The President has graciously tolerated over 20 months of false rumours, speculations and innuendos about his health, but the Leadership newspaper report of today (yesterday) crosses all acceptable lines of professional ethics, decency, decorum and respect for others' rights and feelings. There are laws against libel, defamation of character and publication of falsehoods in our statute books," he concluded.
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Dreams of objectivity, transparency, and other indicia of what is called "democracy," "liberal bourgeois democracy." Fine and dandy: the only problem, dude, is that you are in soupist Nigeria.
Or, do you perhaps delude yourself that with the trappings of "formal democracy", the the African Big Man has morphed into a democrat?
By the way, what do you mean by "objectivity," journalistic or scientific or whatever? May I respectfully remind you that this is a red hot contested concept in the so-called Western 'world'?
I denounce the appropriation of Western hegemonic epistemologico-ideological concepts by alienated African intellectuals… [Read Full Text]
Hey Dude! I am totally lost in your jingoism. Perhaps if you make your words a bit simpler and straight forward, I may be able to respond. Thank you.
Dude, if you can't understand my verba, move on, keep on trucking. I am not here to "simplify" anything FOR YOU or for anybody else. Get it? "Simplify" and "straight forward" are purely subjective gestures, anchored in whatever rhetorical school one salutes.
Have you read Soyinka's claptrap? You get it: I think it is crap. And, that it is MY opinion. My FACTUM: I don't buy his books.
Same here, dude: you don't have to read or respond to my posts. UEBER ALLES, YOU don't, dude, tell me how to ex-press myself, or… [Read Full Text]
This has been overtaken by events. Leadership has apologised and accepted that its report was factually wrong. This calls to question the credibility of other reports by Leadership on the Presidency. According to Mr. Adeniyi "There are laws against libel, defamation of character and publication of falsehoods in our statute books". It is now probable that litigation will not proceed. This has denied the court the opportunity to determine whether 1) a reckless and even "malicious" report constitutes a libel or defamation of character and 2) a law against publication of falsehood actually exists. The latter has profound implications especially… [Read Full Text]
As much as I wanted to defend and commend my President on this issue, given that it is one thing to offer opinion on the way we are being governed, good or bad, so as to keep the government on its toes and make it accountable for its policy decisions so it can be more responsive to the public’s needs in a timely way but when I look at Mr. Ribadu’s current predicament wherein the IGP and the AGF are threatening to fire him if he dares bring a lawsuit against the Police Dept and the Attorney General. Then,… [Read Full Text]