The controversial rift between COSON
chairman, Tony Okoroji and veteran singer Onyeka Onwenu attained a new
peak today as Onwenu was mandated by a Lagos a High court to publicly
apologize to the COSON boss and pay five million Naira in damages.
A Lagos High Court sitting in Ikeja on
Thursday, June 30, 2016 ordered Onyeka Onwenu to pay the sum of five
million naira as damages for defamation of character to Chief Tony
Okoroji, former President of PMAN and Chairman, Copyright Society of
Nigeria (COSON).
Delivering judgment in Suit No:
ID/935/12 filed in 2012, Hon Justice I. O. Akinkugbe (Mrs.) also ordered
Ms. Onwenu to tender an unreserved public apology to Chief Okoroji to
be published in Vanguard Newspapers and www.vanguardngr.com, the website of Vanguard Newspapers.
The war between Okoroji and Onyeka can be traced back to 2011 when
Okoroji went to court to challenge the publication of an article in the Vanguard newspaper edition of October 14, 2011 which he considered a deliberate attempt to malign or defame him.
According to the COSON chair, the article claiming he diverted N3m
donated by the Cross Rivers State Government towards the final burial of
Christy Essien Igbokwe, is ‘unjustified, unwarranted, malicious,
wicked, reckless and libellous.’
The case was thrown out by a Lagos State High Court. At the time, the presiding judge, Justice I.O. Kasali opined: ‘For
words to be defamatory of a party, the said words must have lowered
that party in the estimation of right-thinking members of the public and
there must be evidence of this from a person whose views of that person
have been so adversely affected’.
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