Fani-Kayode threatens Daily Trust with N6bn lawsuit

Nigeria’s former minister of aviation, Femi Fani-Kayode, has sent a libel threat letter to Daily Trust newspaper, whose reporter he maligned in Calabar two weeks ago, by calling him stupid and giving him a lacerating dress-down.

In the letter sent by his lawyer, Adeola Adedipe of Ahmed Raji and co, Fani Kayode demands a N6billion compensation for damages suffered in the article written by Iliyasu Gadu. The letter dated 31 August was titled, “Re: Defamation of the character of Chief Femi Fani-Kayode, by Iliyasu Gadu”.

It read: “Our Client’s attention has been drawn to a spurious publication that was made at your instance, on 30th August 2020, under the caption: ‘FFK, The drug-addled thug in designer wears’ on the Daily Trust print media, and the online platform.

“In that hateful and malicious publication, you consciously elected to denigrate our Client, in the manner hereunder summarised as follows: that he is a dirty person and drug addict; he is a man of low esteem without dignity or reputation; that he is a pariah and disgrace to his State of Origin; he lacks character training in the best traditions of an English man and therefore unfit to be an alumnus of the prestigious Cambridge University and the University of London; he is not fit to have been called to the Nigerian Bar, as a Barrister and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Nigeria;” among other assertions.

“It is our instruction to intimate you of this grievous breach on the character and hard-earned reputation of our client with patent collateral damage on his pedigree.

“Be aware that our client has not only suffered an immeasurable loss of goodwill but he is currently confronted with unbearable opprobrium by his fans. followers and colleagues across the globe.

“Our Client is alive to his rights. both in law and equity but is disposed to afford you an opportunity to undo the evil you have done by retracting the said insalubrious remarks on the same Platform it was published and apologising to him in two other National Dailies.

“You are also advised to enter into negotiations with us for the sum of Six Billion Naira, being a token amount for penitence as opposed to the magnitude of infraction caused to our Client’s nobility.” Fani-Kayode has been in the eye of the storm, after the encounter with the Daily Trust reporter, Eyo Charles, in Calabar, in which he hurled insults at him, for daring to ask him, who was bankrolling his tour of PDP states.

The viral video that came out of the encounter earned counter-rebuke for him, from the mediamen, who he had counted as friends. He later apologised.

But the Daily Trust decided in between to take him to the cleaners, publishing the article by Ilyasu Gadu, which touched on some raw nerves of the loquacious former minister: his past drug life and family history.