By Femi Falana
Last December, the Nigerian Army demanded a retraction of what it described as the ”unwarranted and serial provocative, unauthorized, libelous and defamatory publications against the person of Lt. Gen. T.Y. Buratai, the Chief of Army Staff and Nigerian Army counter insurgency operations in the North East” from the publisher of the Premium Times, an online medium.
Convinced that the publication could not be justified the Army threatened to sue for libel. In a detailed reply to the letter the counsel to the Premium Times, Mr. Jiti Ogunye, called off the bluff of the Army. Apart from rejecting the demand for a retraction he asked the Chief of Army Staff to apologise for threatening to violate the constitutional rights of his client’s staff to life and freedom of expression.
Instead of carrying out its threat to file a libel suit in a High Court, the Army lodged a complaint with the police. And without any…
Source: News Agency of Nigeria
