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Governor Godwin Obaseki who has in the strings of months leading to the electioneering year, conducted his governance in a way clearly abrogating the intrinsic principles of democracy and liberalism, has in the wake of the year and a dawn of his loss of grip on power, unveiled what has since been suspected of him and his government.
This time, Governor Obaseki acting in concert with a member of the frequently referred cronies, has resorted to persecuting the landscape of the media. He begins this witch-hunt with the only person who, versed in research, investigation, and writing, can really employ the powers of the media to shake his despotic government down to its roots.
He threatens lawsuit against John Mayaki in a letter sent on his behalf alongside his Delta-born Executive Assistant, Tijani Nwadei over publications they both claimed are defamatory and injurious to their reputation, hence demanding a retraction, public apology and damages of 500 million naira without which they will be instituting legal proceedings.
However, the said lawsuit is filled with inconsistencies, legal gerrymandering, procedural blunders, and outright dangerous assumptions. Yet the true benefit to this development is that, finally, Governor Obaseki, by his own doing, will be forced to open the accounts of his actions, attitudes, spending, and revenues to the people and to the court - if not now, at least, in the foreseeable future.
Nonetheless, we begin our reception of this development by reiterating that the onus/burden of proof lies on the plaintiff. In this light, since Obaseki claims that our publications are false, malicious, and hence injurious to his image, reputation, and person, therefore pleading defamation, it is instructive to emphasize that the claim remains null and void until it is proven that:
1. The findings of our thorough investigations, as duly published in our reports across our outlets, are completely false and that the plaintiff’s client is in no way, partly or wholly, guilty of the findings of our published reports.
2. Our publications, wrongly, contrarily to the truth, harmed the reputation of the plaintiff's client. In this light, evidence is to be provided that the damage as so claimed, is not a mere reiteration of an existing fact, known to the public of this client—which, of course, will legally hold no water.
3. The plaintiff and the client should provide verifiable proof that the cited publications have truly swayed the public opinion, wrongly, and to the unfair disadvantage of the plaintiff’s client. The objects of proof, for the sake of clarity, can and should come in the form of bar chats, pie charts, and surveys measuring public opinion, prior and post the time of our publications.
Specifically, in one of the nine supposedly defamatory reports cited by the Governor and his Executive Assistant in the legal notice forwarded to Prince John Mayaki, highlighted is the case of a report raising alarm on the state government’s awarding of a school renovation exercise to DVD Oil and Gas, a firm evidently operating in the oil sector and suspiciously owned and run by Valentine Aisuen, the youth leader of the All Progressives Congress and a vaunted ally of the Governor, Mr. Godwin Obaseki, in his ongoing political crisis.
There are existing facts – including a noticeboard erected in one of the renovated schools – to support the claim that this transaction took place. Evidently, it violates important requirements for the awarding of contracts sponsored by public funds including demonstrable competence on the part of the awardee and clear avoidance of bias or conflict of interest on the part of the state government. That the governor considers this defamatory in any sense reflects his poor understanding of governance or attempt to silence a journalist carrying out a constitutionally protected duty.
Similar theme runs across the other cited reports. At the core of it all is the governor’s refusal to heed a direct challenge issued to him by John Mayaki, in cooperation with the freedom of information act, to release to the public, details of contract awarded under his watch including contracted firms and the fee involved to enable due diligence and verification of the truth, particularly as it concerns conflict of interest, display of bias, violation of standard procedural practice, and inflation of costs.
In another specific case of a report on soil test carried out on GeleGele seaport, even though the project is yet to see the light of the day despite repeated promises on the part of Mr. Godwin Obaseki, the state government can bring the truth to the surface by tendering evidence of funds disbursed by the government for the soil test, to whom the funds was released to, a comparison of the cost alongside market price for the exercise, and the details surrounding the execution of the soil test.
Clearly, the only way for the matter to leave the court of “he said, she said” for verifiable facts is for Mr. Godwin Obaseki to declassify all information surrounding these projects and submit them for independent audit and investigation. It is the only fair way it can be factually ascertained if contents of John Mayaki’s reports are either truthful and in satisfaction of journalistic duties, or defamatory.
Godwin Obaseki must stop chasing shadows and refrain from the old intimidation tactics of trying to gag the press through frivolous lawsuits. Open the books of Edo State, account for spendings under your watch and let the public, as well as the court, decide for themselves if the reports cited are defamatory or a correct depiction of your character and activities as governor.
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