By Vera E. Abah
HEARING at the Jabi Judicial Division of the FCT High Court on Wednesday was stalled in the counter-suit over libel and defamation claims between the outgoing President of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Comrade Ayuba Wabba, NLC General Secretary, Comrade Emmanuel Ugboaja, and NLC, on the one hand, and National Record and its Editor-in-Chief, Iduh L. Onah, on the other hand.
The suit was first instituted by Comrade Wabba sometime in 2022 accusing National Record, an Abuja-based online newspaper, and its Editor-in-Chief of libel and defamation of his character. He is seeking for N500 million as compensation as damages.
However, the newspaper and its Editor-in-Chief counter-sued Wabba, Ugboaja and the NLC for issuing a press statement dripping with libellous, fallacious and defamatory statements against them, and as a result both are seeking for N100 million as damages.
Justice Babangida, the presiding judge in the matter which was slated for continuation of hearing on Wednesday (January 25, 2022) is reported to have undergone eye surgery and is recuperating after a successful operation.
Although court officials had asked parties in the suit to take a new date; however, the absence of Comrade Wabba, the claimant/counter-defendant and his co-counter-defendants, as well as their counsel compelled the defendant/counter-claimant’s counsel, Mr Peter Okpenge Esq., to decline picking a date.
Mr Okpenge (Esq.) however pleaded with the court to serve him when the claimant/counter-defendants pick a date for the next sitting.
Wabba is challenging the accuracy and journalistic objectivity of National Record’s publication of December 26, 2021 which reported reactions of employees of NLC to his (Wabba’s) scathing criticism of employers who failed to pay their employees December 2021 salaries before Christmas as contained in his press statement, which National Record published on 2021 Christmas Day, under the headline: “Unpaid Dec. Salaries: NLC Condemns Employers For Turning Joy of Xmas to ‘a Jam of Pain’”.
In the report, entitled “NLC Staff Accuse Wabba of Hypocrisy for Not Paying Dec. Salary Yet Condemns Others,” the employees lampooned Wabba accusing him, among other things, of not authorising the payment of December 2021 salaries before Christmas.
The staff charge Wabba of hypocrisy saying he lacked the moral high ground to criticise other employers of labour who failed to pay their own workers before Christmas.
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