A United States based human rights lawyer, Mr Emmanuel Ogebe, has dragged the Federal Government to court over 10 Chibok girls schooling in the US.
Ogebe, through his lawyer, Barrister David Ogebe, is asking for $5 million for defamation.
Joined in the suit as defendants along with the Federal Government are the Attorney-General of the Federation, the Minister of Women Affairs, Hajia Aisha Alhassan, and her ministry.
In the suit, the plaintiff accused Hajia Alhassan of telling the whole world at a news conference that the 10 Chibok girls his organisation took to the US for studies are not in school.
Ogebe in the suit said around June 2014, he and some humanitarians who are indigenes of Borno State conceived the “study abroad project” specifically to assist the abducted/escaped Chibok schoolgirls after observing during a United States of America congressional fact-finding trip at the time that nothing was being done for them individually and as a group.
According to him, to actualise the project, the Education Must Continue Initiative (“EMCI”) was duly birthed as a non-governmental organisation under Part C of the companies and Allied Matters Act Cap C20 LFN 2004 to serve as the charity to provide quality education for the escaped Chibok school girls and other victims of the insurgency.
He said through the EMCI and his personal efforts, 10 of the escaped Chibok schoolgirls were granted admission with full scholarships in the United States of America (USA) and were subsequently taken to the US where they were enrolled in and began school within a week of their arrival with the Plaintiff duly authorised as their Guardian by their respective families.
But according to the plaintiff, despite his effort to get the ten Chibok girls to study abroad, the women affairs minister came out to say that the girls are not schooling in the US.
He is asking the court for the sum of $5million as exemplary and aggravated damage.
The US based lawyer is also asking for an order of perpetual injunction restraining the defendants either by themselves or through their privies, from further defaming his character whether by print, electronic or online media.
He is also asking the court to write a letter of apology to him and publish same on all social media news platforms and in two national newspapers in Nigeria and one newspaper circulating in the United States of America.