AN Abuja Federal High Court has reserved a ruling on the quest by a businessman, Ibrahim Dende, to stop the Foundation for Investigative Journalism (FIJ) and its founder, Fisayo Soyombo, from further publishing any report about him.
Dende had dragged Soyombo and FIJ to court over an undercover investigation that labelled him a “smuggler and gunrunner.”
He said the publication and its accompanying social media posts by Soyombo and FIJ were defamatory.
Arise Group, owners of Arise Television, was joined in the suit for airing a documentary on the report.
At a recent hearing presided over by the judge of the FCT High Court, Abuja Judicial Division, Binta Mohammed, counsels to the defendants and Dende argued against and in favour of the request, respectively.
Dende’s counsel wrote to the court claiming that his client’s character had been continuously assassinated by the first and second defendants.
The counsel said in addition to the damage the report did to the litigant, subsequent social media posts by FIJ and Soyombo continued to harm him.
The counsel maintained that it had become necessary for the court to grant an injunction to prohibit the “continuous and daily defamatory publications” against the claimant until the determination of the substantive case.
The counsel further argued that the right to free expression should not be a yardstick for any journalist to defame anyone.
Dende claimed he was not a smuggler but a licenced clearing and forwarding agent whose role was to assist with the movement of goods and other products into and out of Nigeria.
The defendants, however, countered Dende’s arguments, affirming the authenticity of its publication and prayed the court to reject the claimant’s application.
They said the request was unconstitutional in form and effect because it sought to restrict press freedom.
In the written argument submitted on behalf of Soyombo and FIJ by their counsel, it was argued that suppressing the press in advance of a trial is an unconstitutional violation of the freedom of the press and the right to free speech under the Constitution.
The counsel said it was the press’ constitutional duty to expose wrongdoing and such role must not be subjected to censorship or curtailed in the interest of the public.
According to the counsel, granting an application for an injunction to restrain further publication on the claimant would be prejudicial to the main suit because it would be wrongly assumed that previous publications were defamatory and there was a need to stop further defamatory publications.
The counsel further argued that Dende who had admitted under oath to assaulting law enforcement officers did not deserve the injunction he sought from the court.
The counsels closed their argument and the court reserved ruling on the application for interlocutory injunction to a later date to be communicated to the parties.