Sowore’s reputation is fake, diplomat Onoh tells US court
By Jeffrey Agbo
Nigeria’s former Ambassador to Namibia, Ambassador Lilian Onoh, has told the U.S. District Court of Northern Texas that the anti-corruption reputation of the publisher of Sahara Reporters, Omoyele Sowore, is fake.
Onoh stated this in a 102-page affidavit with supporting documents submitted to the court on November 1, 2024.
In the court documents which TheNiche exclusively obtained, Onoh alleged that Geoffrey Onyeama, Nigeria’s former Minister of Foreign Affairs and Gabriel Aduda (Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Women Affairs) paid Sowore “tens of thousands of Dollars in cash” to engage in the smear campaign against her.
She further alleged that the cash was hand-delivered to Sowore’s office in New York during the 2021 United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) by one Flavour Eze, Geoffrey Onyeama’s aide, which according to her as stated in the court documents enabled him to bypass money laundering laws and evade U.S. taxes.
Onoh also alleged before the Court that Onyeama and Aduda turned the Ministry of Foreign Affairs into a “money laundering juggernaut” with which they violated international money laundering laws to move money for corrupt Nigerian Government officials and their cronies, including Sowore and Sahara Reporters and that the attacks against her was because she would not turn a blind eye or join them in their corrupt activities.
Sowore was described as the “hatchet man” for corrupt Nigerian politicians who pay him to discredit their opponents with leaked documents after which he would claim that he was exposing corruption to deceive “well-meaning but gullible American and Western Civil Liberties Organisations” that he was fighting corruption.
He was described as being an integral part of the corrupt Nigerian system by the former Ambassador, who questioned how anybody accused of “treason” was free to run for president, raise money for election and campaign across Nigeria. She recalled that he was integral to bringing Buhari to power in 2015 and only turned against Buhari when Buhari failed to make him Minister of Information or Presidential Spokesman.
The former ambassador told the Court that Sowore used a fraudulent document forged by “ignorant people” to defame her and submitted evidence that Sowore had two versions of the document – one on Sahara Reporters Twitter page and a different version submitted to the Court, which proved it as a forgery.
She wondered how many versions of the document was in his possession and even provided her passport and visas to prove she was in America when Sahara Reporters claimed she was running up hotel bills in Nigeria. She described the document which was typed on plain paper with no letterhead or imprimatur of an official document as not worth the paper it was typed on.
Onoh submitted the explosive affidavit and supporting documents to counter Sowore’s attempt to have her case dismissed for lack of personal jurisdiction in Texas. The publisher of Sahara Reporters claimed that he was a New York resident and that Texas lacked jurisdiction over him.
Onoh asked the Court to dismiss Sowore and Sahara Reporters’ Motion because they knowingly submitted a fraudulent document to the Court, which is a felony under Texas’ penal code. She also said she was willing for the Court to transfer the case to New York, as long as she was given the opportunity to clear her name which she claimed the defendants, Sowore and Sahara Reporters, had destroyed.
Meanwhile, Justice Keziah Ogbonnaya of the FCT High Court has not yet delivered judgment in the Onyeama v. Onoh defamation case six months after final arguments in May.
Onyeama sued for N500 million and Onoh counter-claimed N2 billion.
