The Chairman Emeritus of DAAR Communications Plc, Chief Raymond Dokpesi, has been listed as a witness in a N150bn libel suit against African Independent Television before a Lagos State High Court in Ikeja.
The suit is filed by a former Governor of Lagos State, Bola Tinubu, who alleged that AIT impugned him with a documentary tagged “The Lion of Bourdillon,” which the TV station aired severally in the build up to the 2015 general elections.
The presiding judge, Justice Iyabode Akinkugbe, had on April 16 adjourned further hearing in the matter till Wednesday, May 27, 2015.
A copy of the documents filed by Daar Communications in opposition to Tinubu’s suit and cited by our correspondent revealed that Dokepsi and seven others would be appearing in court to testify in favour of Daar Communications.
In its statement of defence and counter-claim, Daar Communications insisted that Tinubu founded his entire claims on “a non- existent ground or cause of action.”
The company maintained that the information contained in “The Lion of Bourdillon” was neither false nor neither aired to malign the person of Tinubu as the national leader of the All Progressives Congress had claimed.
Daar Communications said AIT, as a member of the fourth estate of the realm, was empowered by Section 22 of the Constitution to, at all times, hold those in government accountable and responsible to the people of Nigeria.
It said, “The defendant avers that the claimant is a former public office holder whose activities before, during and after leaving office are always in the public domain for proper scrutiny, in accordance with the intendment of the framers of the Nigerian Constitution.
“The defendant also avers that being in the business of information dissemination, it is aware that the contents of the said documentary are not news to many Nigerians, a fact very well known to the claimant, who took no steps to correct the information embedded in the print media and the social media platforms for years.
“For example, the pseudonym, ‘Lion of Bourdillon,’ by which the claimant has come to be known, addressed and associated with, over the years, was not given to him, or coined by the defendant.”
AIT insisted that the documentary, which it did not author, was only aired for a given short period of time and was last aired on March 6, 2015, when it got the wind that the defendant had filed a libel suit.
In his statement on oath, Dokpesi maintained that AIT merely exercised its constitutional, statutory and social responsibility to inform, educate, entertain and provide a platform for national discourse, to all shades of opinion and political persuasion.
Tinubu, who complained that the documentary was targeted at impugning him, had on April 1, 2015, through his counsel, Chief Wole Olanipekun (SAN), secured an order of interlocutory injunction restraining AIT from further airing the documentary.
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