A legal practitioner, Maxwell Opara, has filed an alleged defamatory suit seeking N10 billion in damages against Twitter and the State Security Service.
In the writ of summons marked FCT/HC/CV/7186/23 and filed at the FCT High Court by Malachy Nwaekpe, Mr Opara listed Twitter Nigeria Limited and the SSS director-general as the first and second defendants, respectively.
The SSS, the attorney general of the federation, and the justice minister are listed as 3rd and 4th defendants in the suit dated August 11 and filed August 14.
The lawyer filed the suit against the allegation that Twitter, now known as X, “negligently allowed the defamatory, ethnic profiling, and racist comments against” him by the SSS under the leadership of its director-general on the security agency’s platform on July 18 for more than 96 hours.
Mr Opara, who alleged that the post was caused to be published and made viral to millions of readers, described the message as “false, defamatory, demeaning, disparaging and harmful.”
He, therefore, sought eight reliefs which include “an order of this honourable court directing the second and third defendants (the secret police’s director-general and SSS), jointly and severally, to issue a letter of apology on the first defendant’s platform Twitter and a daily newspaper widely read across the federation of Nigeria.
Mr Opara sought an order of the court directing the defendants to pay N10 billion as damages for the various defamatory, demeaning, disparaging, and harmful words of the third defendant under the leadership of the second defendant, which words were published and caused to go viral by the 1st defendant on its Twitter platform.
“An award of 10 per cent post-judgment interest per annum on the entire judgment sum from the date of judgment till the same is fully liquidated,” stated Mr Opara.
The matter was yet to be assigned to a judgment at the time of the report.
In the tweet, SSS said, “Charge and bail, overzealous uninformed IPOB/ESN lawyer Maxwell Okpara mobilises other like-minded lawyers against DGSS. Futile Efforts. Well, Nigerians, beware! This is in bad faith. Transferred aggression.”
It added, “A Biafran republic agitator and outlawed IPOB counsel defending the suspended CBN governor. Is IPOB defending one of theirs? What a contradiction. What’s the connection? May Maxwell be properly educated on points of law, please.”
(NAN)