An Abuja-based legal practitioner and certified international Arbitrator, Victor Tunde Nordi, has demanded for the sum of N100 million from an on-line newspaper, Opera News over alleged defamation.
In a letter to the Editor of Opera News, Mr Bayo Olupohundo, by solicitors to Mr. Nordi, Barrister Nnaemeka Ejiofor, Esq of the legal chamber of Nnaemeka Ejiofor and Associates, they complained that Opera News on Thursday, September 3, 2020, published defamatory materials they got from Mr. Nordi’s divorced wife, Miss Seluona Ubebe, without verifying the materials.
According to them, Opera News claimed in their report that “Seluona Ubebe went through hell in her marriage to Victor Nordi, she suffered domestic violence and intimate assault and when she had enough she packed her bag and ran.”
The online newspaper that is registered outside Nigeria also claimed that “Divorce was finally granted after many years as the ex refused and did everything to stop the divorce.”
It added that “Now he is refusing her access to the kids he abducted from her in the guise of them spending summer 2019 with him.”
In the letter to Opera News captioned: “Publication of Defamatory Materials Injurious Falsehood & Criminal Intimidation” solicitors to Barrister Nordi said the publication is “ wholly untrue, is particularly damaging to our client’s reputation as a law abiding citizen, and a certified international Arbitrator/ and Legal Practitioner.”
Part of the letter reads: “We are solicitors To Mr Tunde Victor Nordi (hereinafter referred to as our client) at whose instance we act in this matter.
“We are in receipt of an article you published in your news Tabloid: Opera news, on Thursday the 3rd of September 2020, wherein you caused a publication in which one Miss Seluona Ubebe alleged amongst other things that, ‘she eloped from her marriage to our client due to matrimonial violence and that when she filed a petition for divorce our client tried to evade and frustrate same and when she was eventually granted access to the three children of the marriage the aforesaid refused her access for upwards of two and half years’.
“The foregoing being wholly untrue, is particularly damaging to our client’s reputation as a law abiding citizen, and a certified international Arbitrator/ and Legal Practitioner, and it’s even more disheartening that, you not only did not even hear the other side of the story ,but went ahead to publish same, with our client’s picture superimposed with your story, which ostensibly you lifted his Linkedin data page.
“You have maliciously destroyed our client’s image and reputation, and caused him severe emotional distress, causing right thinking members of the society to shun him, you have caused him great damage and injury to his arbitration and legal practice.
“For purposes of clarification: Our client has been divorced from Miss Seluona Ubebe since February 2020.
“Prior to the divorce, he had been legally given the children’s custody jointly with Seluona. But she flouted the terms of the joint custody, forcing our client to apply for a variation of the Order, which together with our disagreement with the order, is now on Appeal, in suit NO CA/A/187/19.
“Till date Seluona Ubebe, is yet to comply with the order for cost in the sum of N200,000 awarded against her by the court, in the aftermath of the divorce petition, and could therefore not even rely on the judgment, aside the pending appeal.
“Take notice that in consequence of your unprofessional and malicious publication against our client, with the attendant injury to his reputation, we demand the following, that you: a) Publish a refraction and an apology, in your news tabloid within a week of receipt hereof. b) Forward copies of your retraction to Instagram, Facebook, FIDA and two Nigerian newspapers circulating online and globally.
“We also require you to pay our client a paltry sum of N100 million as reparation for your unwarranted and malicious publication, which has damaged his reputation and caused several injuries to his reputation, trade and businesses.”
