MISSING NNPC OIL FUNDS: DEZIANI SUES APC AND MEDIA HOUSES

The Minister of Petroleum Resources, Diezani Alison-Madueke, has sued 11 organizations and individuals over the missing $20billion oil funds.
The funds were reported missing from the coffers of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), by former Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi.
Mrs Alison-Madueke has filed a suit before the Federal High Court in Abuja to restrain members of the media from linking her with the missing money.
The defendants in the case are the All Progressives Congress(APC), Vanguard Media Limited and its editor, Mideno Bayagbon, Leadership Newspapers Group Limited and its editor Ekele Peter Agbo, Premium Times Services Limited and its editor in chief, Dapo Olorunyomi, and Vintage Press Limited and its editor, Lekan Otufodunrin.
Also joined in the application were the National Broadcasting Corporation and the Nigerian Press Council.
The minister’s lawyer, Godwin Obla obtained an interim injunction from the court restraining the defendants from “publishing or causing to be published any further defamatory statements” stating or suggesting that the minister “stole, misappropriate or colluded in the stealing of $20billion crude oil revenue”.
The Court directed the two government regulators to ensure Mrs. Alison-Madueke is not linked in any report regarding the alleged missing $20 billion either on broadcast media, internet, print or radio.
The court specifically ordered the media houses to “desist from publishing any materials or running any programmme alluding to the complicity or collusion” the minister in respect of “$20billion, $49billion or any other figure, howsoever computed or arrived at, which are purportedly/allegedly missing or ‘unaccounted’ for”.
“You are hereby advised to immediately ensure total compliance with the Order of the Hon. Justice Ademola and to further cease and desist forthwith from publishing any material, howsoever titled or presented and irrespective of its form and content, which alludes to any amorous, immoral, salacious and defamatory matters connected to or related with our client, including anything to do with any allegation(s) or insinuation that our client colluded, was involved with or is complicit in the matter of a purportedly/allegedly missing $20billion, $49billion or any other amount whatsoever, until the determination of the substantive suit,” it stated.
Warning that compliance to the court order was not discretionary, but mandatory, Mr. Obla said that any attempt to do otherwise would be tantamount to flouting a subsisting order of a competent court.
“Failure to heed or give effect to the subsisting orders of the court will lead to the full force of the law being brought to bear upon your organization,” he said.