Ex-Nigerian diplomat moves defamation case against Sahara Reporters to New York
Former Nigerian Ambassador to Namibia, Lilian Onoh, has moved her multi-million Dollar defamation against Sahara Reporters and its chairwoman, Lakeisha Landrum-Pierre, to New York.
Information on PacerMonitor.com, the U.S. national online portal for Federal Court Cases, shows that the former envoy filed the case on 25th September 2026 in the Southern District of New York.
Onoh previously sued the New York registered website in Texas but due to the complicated US legal rules on State jurisdiction, Federal Court in Texas declined to hear the case, ruling that among other things, Sahara Reporters and Lakeisha Landrum Pierre did not have enough meaningful contact with the State of Texas for the court to exercise jurisdiction.
According to court filings that can be accessed on the website, Onoh contends that Sahara Reporters and lakeisha Landrum Pierre and Omoyele Sowore made up stories about her and published them as fact.
Landrum Pierre and Sowore have variously attributed these stories to Geoffrey Onyeama, the former Minister of Foreign Affairs; Gabriel Aduda, his former Permanent Secretary and unnamed “sources”. They both stated categorically that Geoffrey Onyeama concocted the reports and gave the stories to them in September 2021 and April 2023 and that they were also reporting statements given to them by Gabriel Aduda.
However, Onoh contended that Sahara Reporters and its officials repeatedly claimed that these concocted “spoon-fed” defamatory reports were the result of “investigations by Sahara Reporters” in their publications, portraying what they knew to be fabricated lies as truth and destroying her reputation and career with these defamatory lies.
Onoh stated that the actions of Sahara Reporters and Lakeisha Landrum Pierre meet the necessary requirements of defamation – publication, wilful negligence and malice, and publishing falsehood as fact; stating that not only did they know that they were publishing falsehood, they also knew the impact of these lies on her career and reputation and were malicious in wilfully publishing and republishing what they knew to be lies concocted by “corrupt” government officials that she had testified against before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and whose “corrupt activities” she had reported to former President Buhari with all necessary evidence, including bank records from international banks and the US State Department’s enquiry about the visa fraud by Ambassador Janet Olisa in Jamaica.
She stated that Sahara Reporters and Landrum Pierre were malicious, wilfully negligent and that their “conduct was extreme and outrageous in character, and so extreme as to go beyond all possible bounds of decency, as to be regarded as atrocious and utterly intolerable in a civilized community.”
So far, Sahara Reporters and Landrum Pierre have not responded. The US gives defendants twenty one days from the date they are served to respond.
Sahara Reporters is also facing another multi-million Dollar lawsuit for defamation, filed in Washington by U.S. lobbyist, Dr. Karl Von Batten Montague.
Onoh is suing for economic, emotional and punitive damages and has demanded a jury trial. US jurors have historically awarded very high punitive damages in such cases.
