{"id":4896,"date":"2015-05-07T10:13:56","date_gmt":"2015-05-07T10:13:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=4896"},"modified":"2015-05-07T10:13:56","modified_gmt":"2015-05-07T10:13:56","slug":"election-jega-panics-gets-court-to-stop-nigerian-pilot-from-publishing-damning-investigative-report-on-his-alleged-ill-gotten-wealth-abuse-of-office","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=4896","title":{"rendered":"Election: Jega Panics, Gets Court to Stop \u2018Nigerian Pilot\u2019 from Publishing Damning Investigative Report on His Alleged Ill-gotten Wealth, Abuse of Office"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Jega\"<\/a>Chairman of Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Prof. Attahiru Muhammad Jega, has obtained an injunction from an Abuja High Court against Nigerian Pilot Newspapers and Nigerian Newsworld Magazine restraining reportage on him and his activities till further notice.
\nNigerian Pilot had on April 14, 2015 formally written to the INEC chairman seeking audience with him on issues thrown up in a four-month investigation the newspaper did on his tenure as the country\u2019s chief electoral superintendent in fulfillment of the demands of the profession.
\nBut his solicitors instead replied the missive on April 20, 2015, asking that Nigerian Pilot acquaint them with details of its findings which the INEC chairman would respond to in writing devoid of a formal interview.
\nThree days after the receipt of the lawyers\u2019 letter, the court order was given. The Certified True Copy of the court order which followed an ex-parte motion filed by his lawyer, A. B. Mahmoud of Dikko &Mahmoud before His Lordship, Hon. Justice D. Z. Senchi of the High Court, Apo, Abuja, on April 23, 2015, reads:
\n\u201cAn order of Interim Injunction is hereby granted restraining the defendants\/respondents whether by themselves, their officers, privies, agents, employees or otherwise howsoever called from publication in their Nigerian Pilot Newspapers and the Nigerian Newsworld Magazine,
\nwhether print or online edition or in any medium whatsoever the libelous findings and conclusions pertaining to the plaintiff\/applicant and to have been unearthed after the defendants\/respondents four months period of thorough investigation and scrutiny of the plaintiff\u2019s activities as INEC boss referred to in their letter of April 14, 2015 addressed to the plaintiff pending the hearing and determination of the motion on notice filed along with the substantive action now before this court.\u201d
\nThe case has been fixed for May 20, 2015 for mention.
\nNigerian Pilot Newspapers and Nigerian Newsworld Magazine have since
\nfiled a counter suit.
\nIn his four-point prayers, Jega asked the court to declare that the defendants so called \u201c4 months period of investigation and scrutiny\u201d of the plaintiff\u2019s activities as INEC boss, which \u201cunearthed shocking revelations of malfeasance, self-enrich and abuse of office\u201d and the finding and conclusion reached by the defendants regarding the honesty and integrity of the plaintiff that \u201csharply contrast with public perception\u201d without confronting the plaintiff with the so-called allegations or documents containing such allegations in their possession and affording him the opportunity of rebutting such allegations are malicious, in bad faith, amount to blackmail and undue harassment.
\nThe INEC boss also prayed the court to restrain the defendants, by themselves, their servants, agents or privies or otherwise however, from proceeding with the publication threatened to be published against the plaintiff in their letter of 14th April, 2015 for being libelous and intended to injure his reputation.
\nIn the alternative, Jega sought an order of the court directing the defendants to submit to the court the result of the defendants\u2019 so called \u201cthrough investigations and scrutiny of the plaintiff\u2019s
\nactivities as INEC boss\u201d to enable the court determine the public interest dimension of the allegations and direct if such publication could in the public interest be published by the defendants or any other person.
\nHe further sought damages in the sum of N1 billion as his solicitors\u2019 fees and the cost of the action.
\n*Source: MetroWatch Online<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chairman of Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Prof. Attahiru Muhammad Jega, has obtained an injunction from an Abuja High Court against Nigerian Pilot Newspapers and Nigerian Newsworld Magazine restraining reportage on him and his activities till further notice. Nigerian Pilot had on April 14, 2015 formally written to the INEC chairman seeking audience with him […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4897,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[176,164],"class_list":["post-4896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national","tag-attahiru-jega","tag-inec"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/Jega.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4oswh-1gY","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4896"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4896\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4898,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4896\/revisions\/4898"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}