NEWS
FCT High Court Bars Ex-Abia Information Commissioner, Eze Chikamnayo from Further Alleged Defamatory Publications Against Governor Alex Otti as ₦100bn Suit Continues
A Federal Capital Territory High Court has granted an interlocutory injunction restraining a former Abia State Commissioner of Information, Barr. Eze Chikamnayo, from publishing or circulating alleged defamatory content against the Governor of Abia State, Dr. Alex Chioma Otti, OFR, pending the determination of a ₦100bn defamation suit instituted by the governor.
The order was made by Justice J.E. Obanor in a ruling delivered on Thursday, following an application brought before the court by Governor Otti. In the ruling, the court directed Chikamnayo to immediately desist from “writing, authoring, sharing, circulating, broadcasting, voicing, forwarding and/or syndicating the writing and publication of contents defamatory of the Claimant on the Defendant’s Facebook wall ‘Iyierioba Chikamnayo’ and/or any other social/digital media platform such as X, Instagram, Telegram, WhatsApp, Tiktok, including the traditional media to wit: the newspaper houses, the radio and television pending the determination of the substantive suit that gave rise to this application.”
Justice Obanor, while granting the application, stated in the order that: “Having carefully considered the application and all the processes before the Court, and there being no process challenging same, I am satisfied as to the need to grant the interlocutory order sought. Motion No. M/15807/2025 is hereby granted, and the orders are accordingly made as prayed, pending the determination of the substantive suit.”
The court thereafter adjourned the matter to January 19, 2026, for hearing.
The interlocutory injunction followed a motion on notice filed by the governor’s legal team led by Dr. Sonny Ajala, SAN. The motion accused Chikamnayo of persistently publishing offensive and defamatory materials against Governor Otti despite having been served with court papers on October 17, 2025.
Court documents indicate that Chikamnayo allegedly continued to make a series of posts on his Facebook page, ‘Iyierioba Chikamnayo,’ between October 17 and October 31, 2025, after being served with the originating processes. The publications included statements such as “Alex Otthief Will Lose by 2027 and Abia State will remain peaceful,” “Alex Otthief is a confirmed bully. He is obviously jittery!!!!” and “Otthief is a thief.”
In an affidavit in support of the motion, deposed to by Ifeanyi Michael Agbo, the practice manager at Deeplaw Associates, the governor’s legal team stated: “The Defendant/Respondent who is a legal practitioner and very knowledgeable of the duty imposed by law when a lawsuit is pending has remained defiant in sustaining annoying and offensive materials and calling the Claimant/Applicant thief in offensive materials published on the Defendant/Respondent’s Facebook Wall.”
The affidavit further stated: “The Defendant/Respondent has ferociously sustained his harassment and castigation of the Claimant/Applicant as a thief and fraud with the objective to cause the Claimant/Applicant maximum reputational damage and instigate mob uprising against Claimant/Applicant by the people of Abia State the pending lawsuit to the knowledge of the Defendant/Respondent.”
In a written address accompanying the motion, Governor Otti’s counsel argued that Chikamnayo’s continued publications violated the doctrine of sub judice, which forbids acts or publications capable of prejudicing or influencing the outcome of a matter pending before a court. The address cited posts made on October 29, 2025, in which Chikamnayo wrote: “You cannot use frivolous litigation as a means of evading the truth and accountability” and “Suing or intimidating opposition will not stop the takeover.”
Dr. Ajala further submitted that “The affront and effrontery of the Defendant/Respondent who is a legal practitioner is unparalleled, unacceptable and deserving of the remonstration by this Temple of Justice.”
The written address also contended that the defendant’s conduct violated Rule 30 of the Rules of Professional Conduct for Legal Practitioners 2023, which provides that “A lawyer is an officer of the court and, accordingly, he shall not do any act or conduct himself in any manner that may obstruct, delay or adversely affect the administration of justice.”
The substantive suit, filed on October 8, 2025, at the Federal Capital Territory High Court, followed an earlier demand letter dated October 2, 2025, in which Ajala requested that Chikamnayo retract the offensive publications within seven days. The former commissioner, however, failed to comply with the ultimatum.
In the demand letter, Ajala stated: “Our client for the avoidance of doubt is the only Governor and Chief Executive of a State within the 36 States of Nigeria who bears the name Alex Chioma Otti, thus no effort is required by members of the public to link all your spiteful, false and defamatory attacks to our client either by direct name calling or by other variant of the name Alex Chioma Otti by way of caricature, pun, simile, metaphor, onomatopoeia and/or metonymy.”
The lawsuit referenced several Facebook posts allegedly published by Chikamnayo between July and September 2025, including posts captioned “Alex Otthief is a confirmed criminal and disaster” on September 22, 2025; “fighting promax” on September 21, 2025; “old or new Abia?” on September 14, 2025; “Alex Otthief is A confirmed criminal and congenital Liar=Looting Governor” on August 15, 2025; and “Government of Alex Otthief for Zignature Bank=Ruin Abia” on July 21, 2025.
In the substantive suit, Governor Otti is seeking a declaration that his “reputation, respect, goodwill and standing as a person, husband, father and a political leader has been grossly injured and the Claimant has suffered grave damage owing to the Defendant’s persistent false and malicious online publications of contents defamatory of the Claimant on the Defendant’s Facebook Wall titled; ‘Iyierioba Chikamnayo with 6.4K (six thousand, four hundred) followers.”
The governor is also demanding N100bn in damages for “the loss of reputation, psychological and emotional trauma suffered by the Claimant owing to the falsehood and malicious online publications of contents defamatory of the Claimant.”
Additionally, Governor Otti is seeking an order compelling Chikamnayo to tender an unreserved apology for “each of the cocktail of the malicious online publications” to be published on the defendant’s Facebook wall and in Thisday Newspaper, the National Ambassador Newspaper, the Punch Newspaper and the Nation Newspaper. The suit also seeks a perpetual injunction restraining the defendant from further defamatory publications on any social or traditional media platform, as well as N250m as the cost of prosecuting the suit.
Earlier, on October 16, 2025, Justice Obanor had granted Governor Otti leave to serve court processes on Chikamnayo through substituted service via his Facebook wall ‘Iyierioba Chikamnayo’ and his phone and WhatsApp number, after the governor’s legal team argued that those channels were the means through which the demand letter had been delivered.
In a fresh “affidavit of extreme urgency” filed alongside the motion for interlocutory injunction, the governor’s legal team warned: “Except the Defendant/Respondent is restrained from making further publications against the Claimant/Applicant, the Claimant/Applicant will suffer irreparable reputational damage and mob uprising/attack from the people of Abia State before the pending lawsuit is adjudicated on merit.”
The written address further relied on the Supreme Court’s decision in Ideozu vs. Ochoma (2006), which held that “Interlocutory injunction second in the line of injunctive reliefs is aimed at attacking or tackling a threatening, continuing or living adverse act or conduct on the part of the owner of the act or conduct.”
Chikamnayo, described in court documents as “an internet citizen (netcitizen) who applies his trade including the offensive publications that gave rise to this suit online/digitally with global audience,” has been ordered to enter an appearance within thirty days of being served with the writ, failing which judgment may be delivered in his absence.
Governor Otti’s lawyers further maintained that the publications subjected the governor to “unquantifiable mental torture, depression, denigration, brutal destruction of his (Otti’s) reputation built over the decades” and “utterly disfigured and diminished our client’s standing in the eyes and estimation of right-thinking persons.”