The National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Prince Uche Secondus, has sued Prince Kassim Afegbua for defamation of character, demanding N5 billion damages.
Counsel to Prince Uche Secondus, Emeka Etiaba SAN, in the suit notice, complained of a front page publications of Daily Trust Newspapers of Tuesday, April 27, 2021, (but erroneously dated 2020) and Daily Sun Newspaper of Tuesday, April 27, 2021 at the front page upon which they have been given strict instruction to seek redress over the defendant’s obvious reckless acts of defamation against the person and office of Secondus.
Etiaba pointed out that in the Daily Trust publication titled: “Fresh crisis rocks PDP, Secondus accused of N10bn fraud”, the defendant had alleged among other things that “a fresh crisis had hit the PDP as the Prince Uche Secondus-led National Working Committee (NWC) of the party has been accused of mismanagement of N10bn generated from the sale of forms for four years.”
Also, that “the country’s anti-corruption agencies, EFCC and ICPC have been petitioned by one of the chieftains of the party over the matter.”
Etiaba also pointed out that “the petitioner, Prince Kassim Afegbua, alleged that the leadership has mismanaged close to N10bn which accrued from the sale of nomination forms for the presidential, gubernatorial, House of Assembly and Senatorial elections from 2017 to date.”
He, however, stated that the PDP National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, had in response to the petitioner, described the allegation as “spurious” and “irresponsible.”
He cited Ologbondiyan to had declared: “the PDP did not raise Afegbua’s fictitious sum of N10 billion as alleged by him. For the avoidance of doubt, the PDP generated the sum of N4.6 billion and raised a budget for its expenditure, in line with all known financial regulations of our party.
“This budget passed through the organs of our party and received the approvals from the NWC, the governors forum, the Board of Trustees as well as other organs of the party.
“As a law abiding political party that respects the doctrine of rule of law and transparency, the budget was presented to the National Executive Committee (NEC) where it also received a final approval.”
Etiaba further observed that the petitioner, in a statement said: “Much of the financial transactions of the PDP under Prince Uche Secondus have been shrouded in mystery.”
The counsel added that the petitioner said that in the event the anti-graft agency delayed in carrying out its investigation, he would have no option but to seek legal redress in the law court.”