Assurance Patrick
Edo-based Apostle Johnson Suleman has dragged Festus Keyamo (SAN) before the Nigerian Bar Association over an alleged public statements he made against him concerning one Stephanie Otobo.
Apostle Suleman alleged that Keyamo tried to smear his name through the media, and therefore wants the court to sanction Keyamo.
Miss Otobo had, last year, alleged that she had an amorous relationship with Apostle Suleman who had reneged his promise to marry her.
Counsel to Suleman, Olayiwola Afolabi, told journalists in Benin on Sunday that Keyamo failed to handle the matter professionally and also refused to respond to letters sent to him by Suleman, prompting the preacher to petition the NBA.
According to Afolabi, Keyamo made spurious allegations against his client, sometime on March 3, 2017.
He noted that Otobo later tendered public apology to Suleman, but Keyamo has still not retracted his public statements against Suleman.
Afolabi said; “While Keyamo made a demand on our client supposedly on the brief of Stephanie Otobo, our client was, ordinarily, the addressee of the said letter.
“However, our client had hardly received and acknowledged receipt of the letter when he followed up with a petition to the Inspector General of Police and an organised media attack on our client.
“As widely accepted in the legal sphere, an addressee of a letter ought to have taken receipt of it before any supposed action would be taken on it; but in this instance, not only did he make it a subject of media gossips, he engaged in active conversations in the public sphere through print and other media on the matter for which our client had no opportunity to debunk the allegations.”
Meanwhile, the Secretary of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Jonathan Gunu Taidi, has directed Suleman to within 21 days forward to it a statement sworn before a competent court.
The NBA in a statement dated 29th January 2019, directed Suleman to include in his statement, any witness he may wish to call with “concise statement of material facts to be relied upon in support of the petition,” with other relevant documents.
The NBA said this would enable it to take a decision on the petition.
