Court reserves judgment in DSS staffers’ N5.5bn defamation suit against SERAP

A High Court of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), sitting in Maitama, Abuja, has reserved judgment till a date to be communicated to parties in a N5.5 billion defamation suit by two operatives of the Department of State Services (DDS) against a group, the Socio-economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP).

Justice Halilu Yusuf made the announcement on Thursday after lawyers to parties adopted their final written addresses and made their final submissions in the suit filed by the two officers, Sarah John and Gabriel Ogundele.

Listed with SERAP as defendants in the suit, marked: CV/4547/2024, is its deputy director, Kolawole Oluwadare.

The claimants, in the suit, accused SERAP of making false claims that John and Ogundele invaded their Abuja office on September 9, 2024.

While adopting the final written address of the claimant on Thursday, their lawyer, Oluwagbemileke Kehinde, urged the court to grant all the reliefs sought by his clients.

Kehinde faulted the competence of the 12-page reply address filed for the second defendant, arguing that it violated order 39 rule two of the court’s rules, which provides that reply address should not exceed 10 pages.

He urged the court to discountenance the address and further argued that the claimants had substantially proved their case, having established that the officers were the people referred to in the alleged defamatory publication made by the defendants

Kehinde argued that, as against the argument by the defendants, every person in the society must know the claimants before they can succeed in a defamation claim.

He said it is sufficient that the claimants’ colleagues are aware of the alleged defamatory publication and understood that it referred to the claimants.

Kehinde added: “All the ingredients of defamation have been priced, it referred to the claimants and there is no denial that there was a publication.”

Earlier, lawyer to SERAP, Victoria Bassey, adopted her client’s final address and address on reply on point of law after the court granted her request to deem the addresses properly filed, having been filed out of time.

Bassey urged the court to dismiss the suit and argued that since the claimants were not specifically named in the publication complained about, they must prove that they were the people referred to in the publication before they could succeed in a defamation suit.

She argued that the claimants failed to establish that they were the subjects of the publication complained about.

Lawyer to Oluwadare (second defendant), Oluwatosin Adesioye, made similar arguments as Bassey and urged the court to dismiss the suit.

Adesioye said his clients queried the court’s jurisdiction in the final written address on the grounds that not only did the claimants fail to establish that they were the people referred to in the publication, but they also did not show that the DSS is known to law.

He argued that what is known in the National Security Agencies Act, it is only the State Security Service that is known, not the DSS.

He also faulted the competence of the claimants’ final written address, which he claimed exceeded the stipulated 30 pages by five pages.