Looters’ list: Everybody is treating me like plague — Dopkesi

Communications PLC, High Chief Raymond Dopkesi, on Tuesday told a High Court of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) that everybody now treats him like a plague after his name appeared on the looters’ list released by the Minister of Information, Alhaji Lai Mohammed.

Dokpesi stated this while being cross-examined by the defendants’ counsel in a suit he brought before Justice Olukayode Adeniyi, sitting at Apo, Abuja, seeking N5 billion damages from Mohammed and the Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami.
He dragged the ministers to court claiming that they defamed his character by including his name on the treasury looters’ list.

He told the court that the Information Minister had on March 30, during a press conference, portrayed him as “a corrupt and crooked person, a dishonest man and a thief.”

In the suit, with the number FCT/CV/1650/18, Dokpesi insisted that his reputation has been seriously injured, adding that he had suffered considerable distress, odium, obloquy, ridicule, as well as political analysis in the media, castigating him on the basis of the inclusion of his name as number four on the looters’ list.

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He, therefore, demanded N5 billion as damages for libel and also urged the court to order the defendants to publish a full retraction and apologise to him in all major electronic and print media outlets in the country.

He also urged the court to grant a perpetual injunction restraining the defendants, whether by themselves or proxies from further writing, publishing, speaking or cause to be written, published or spoken, the said words comoalined of or any word to the like effect, which are similarly defamatory to the plaintiff.

At the resumption of the case on Tuesday, Dokpesi, while answering questions from counsel for the defendants, Damian Agbe, stated that he was unjustly called a looter of treasury.

Though he agreed with Agbe that he was facing trial for allegedly collecting N2.1 billion from the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA), Dokpesi declared that he had not been found guilty by any court.

He informed that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) recently released the lists of members of campaign councils for the forthcoming governorship elections in both Bayelsa and Kogi states but he was rejected by the party.

He told the court that though he held no position in the opposition party, “I was a leader a stakeholder in the PDP.”
Meanwhile, Justice Adeniyi has adjourned the case till January 16, 2020, for defence.