Ex-minister Geoffrey Onyeama ‘created report’ on Lilian Onoh published by Sahara Reporters, Sowore tells US Court
By Jeffrey Agbo
Publisher of Sahara Reporters, Omoyele Sowore, has told a US federal court in Texas that in April 2023 he and Sahara Reporters received a “report created by” the former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama about Ambassador Lilian Onoh which they subsequently published on Sahara Reporters.
Mr Sowore stated this in his defence on a defamation suit filed by Onoh, Nigeria’s former High Commissioner to Namibia and Jamaica.
According to court documents filed by Sowore’s lawyer in July and sighted by our correspondent, “On or about April 21, 2023, after obtaining a report created by the Nigerian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sahara Reporters published an article reporting on allegations that Plaintiff Lilian Onoh [“Plaintiff”] engaged in financial misconduct involving Nigerian government funds.”
In the suit filed by Onoh in December 2023 in the State of Texas, USA against Onyeama, Gabriel Aduda, Sowore and Sahara Reporters, the former ambassador stated that Sahara Reporters knowingly published lies concocted by Onyeama and Aduda (former Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs) that falsely accused her of misappropriation in order to discredit her reports of unbridled corruption in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, including the embezzlement of $2.8million from Red Cross funds meant for Haiti Earthquake victims by a Nigerian ambassador and other diplomats in Jamaica; visa racketeering against the USA by another Nigerian ambassador in Jamaica and VAT fraud against the Namibian Government by her predecessor in Namibia.
Onoh served as Head of Mission in Jamaica and Namibia. She had reported the allegations levelled against her in a series of memos to former President Muhammadu Buhari.
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In her suit, Onoh alleged that Sowore and Sahara Reporters knew that they were publishing lies in advance.
Sowore admitted that what he published accusing Onoh of “misappropriation” was created by Onyeama whom Onoh had accused of superintending over massive corruption and sabotaging Nigeria in a series of memos she sent to Buhari.
In 2021, Onoh wrote an open letter to Onyeama, stating that she left over $400,000.00 in her Mission in Namibia which was being looted by officers sent to Namibia by Onyeama after she left the mission.
In reaction, Onyeama claimed that her official reports to Buhari about rampant corruption in his ministry were libellous and sued Onoh for defamation in Abuja.
In her defence before Justice Keziah Ogbonnaya of the FCT High Court, Onoh testified that in addition to her reports about the alleged massive corruption by Onyeama and other Nigerian diplomats, she had also warned Buhari about Onyeama’s “hereditary insanity” and his “long familiar history at the Psychiatric Hospital in Enugu”, stating that his condition had negatively impacted his handling of Nigeria’s foreign relations.
She stated that it was her official duty to report the alleged massive corruption supervised by Onyeama in Nigeria’s embassies and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to Buhari and that her reports to the ex-president were acts of qualified privilege.
She also testified that Onyeama had pursued a long vendetta against her to avenge his humiliation after Onoh’s sister divorced him due to his “unhinged psychiatric behaviour.” Onoh’s sister was briefly married to Onyeama.
The Buhari administration is considered to be one of the most corrupt in Nigeria’s history and a publication by Business Insider Africa on July 30, 2024, listed Nigerian Embassy and Consulate officials as the fifth most corrupt public officials in Nigeria, even more corrupt than the notorious Nigerian Police (7th position) and Members of Parliament (6th Position). Only Judges/ Magistrates, Customs/Immigration, Land Registry officers and Prosecutors were ranked as more corrupt than Nigerian diplomats, according to the report.
Sowore and Sahara Reporters are also facing charges of criminal defamation, cyberbullying and cyberstalking Senator Ned Nwoko in Nigeria.