13th December 2024, NewsOrient, News, Law And Society,

Abia State Governor, Dr Alex Otti, has given one Hon. Tobias Chukwudi Egeonu (Hon. Toby Chuks) seven (7) days to retract and apologize to him over a libelous publication he made against the governor.

The governor also demanded N50b compensation following the damaging reports Hon Toby Chuks wrote and published against the governor.

A letter from Governor Alex Otti, through his lawyer, Dr Sonny Ajala SAN, is demanding N50Billion (Fifty Billion Naira) compensation to Dr Otti for the said “false and malicious online defamatory publication of 8th December, 2024.

The offensive publication is captioned: “What Alex Otti Cannot Destroy Does Not Exist: Vol. 1.”

The letter from Gov Otti’s lawyer, sighted by NewsOrient, said the publication “grossly tarnished the reputation of our client before his colleagues in the financial sector, his political associates and the good people of Abia State that elected him their Governor in 2023.”

The letter, dated 13th day of December 2024 reads in full:

“Dear Sir,
DEMAND FOR THE RETRACTION OF YOUR ONLINE LIBELLOUS PUBLICATION AGAINST DR. ALEX CHIOMA OTTI, OFR; ON YOUR FACEBOOK WALL KNOWN AS HON. TOBY CHUKS CAPTIONED ‘WHAT ALEX OTTI CANNOT DESTROY DOES NOT EXIST: VOL. 1.’

We are Solicitors and Counsel to Dr. Alex Chioma Otti, OFR; often addressed as and called Alex Otti and presently the Governor of Abia State, Nigeria, (hereinafter called our client) and it is on his behalf, authority and instruction that we write you pertaining to your unwarranted online libelous publication from the pits of hell against our client.

PRELIMINARY REMARKS:
In this letter of demand, Alex. Otti; Dr. Alex C. Otti, OFR and Governor Alex Otti refers to the same and one person Alex Otti, our aggrieved client over your defamatory publication.

A. BRIEF BACKGROUND OF OUR CLIENT, DR. ALEX C. OTTI, OFR:

Our client is a respected banker and financial expert having graduated from the University of Port Harcourt with a First Class Degree (Honours) degree in Economics in 1988, emerging as the overall best graduating student and the valedictorian. He received an MBA from the University of Lagos in 1994 and he is equally an Alumnus of the prestigious Harvard Business School and other leading global business schools, such as the Graduate School of Business-Stanford University, California Wharton Business School, University of Pennsylvania, Columbia Business School and the Columbia University, New York.

Our client’s outstanding career in the banking sector, commenced in 1989 with the Nigeria International Bank Limited; a subsidiary of the Citibank New York. He later applied his trade as top executive with the United Bank Plc, the First Bank of Nigeria Limited and Diamond Bank Plc where he acquitted himself creditably as the Managing Director/Chief Executive before his voluntary disengagement in 2014 to offer his wealth of leadership skills to serve the good people of Abia State in the turf of partisan politics.

Whilst serving as the Managing Director/Chief Executive of Diamond Bank Plc, Dr. Alex Otti, OFR chaired routinely the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Central Bank of Nigeria, which is the hub of policy formulation for the macro-economic direction of the country by the apex regulatory agency.

Our client informed us and we truly believed him that his conduct, character, credibility, integrity, professionalism and standing with his peers, colleagues regulatory agencies and constituents has remained sterling over the years. Our client is a proud recipient of several local and international awards including the presidential recognition as Officer of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, OFR.

B. GOV. ALEX C. OTTI, OFR WAS IN ABUJA ON 11th DECEMBER, 2024 TO ATTEND THE NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL MEETING:

Our client informed and we believed him that he arrived the Abia Lodge, Asokoro, Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, his official residence as the Governor of Abia State on Wednesday, 11th December, 2024 to participate in the deliberations of the Nigeria Governors Forum as a prelude to the National Economic Council meeting scheduled for 12/12/2024.

Our client informed us and we verily believed him that whilst trying to review correspondences placed on his desk, a guest and a prominent son of Abia State residing in the FCT accosted him with the disparaging online publication that he Alex Otti is stealing the funds of Abia State after fleecing all the banks he worked for in the past.

The guest showed our client the screen shot on his phone of the Facebook on the Wall of Hon. Toby Chuks.

Our client informed us and we truly believed him that on account of the alert by his guest, he put on hold his engagements and log unto his social media handles and signed-on to the Facebook App. As ex banker chief who is very conversant with the digital world, our client searched for and successfully assessed the name/Facebook Wall of the said Hon. Toby Chuks, downloaded and read the online publication captioned; What Alex Otti Cannot Destroy Does Not Exist: Vol. 1’ published on 8th December, 2024.

C. YOUR UNRESTRAINED ONLINE PUBLICATION ON YOUR FACEBOOK WALL ON 8TH DECEMBER, 2024 GRAVELY ASSASINATED THE CHARACTER AND REPUTATION OF DR. ALEX C. OTTI, OFR.

By your online libelous publication on your Facebook Wall, Hon. Toby Chuks on the 8th day of December, 2024, which you ought to know and indeed knew to be patented falsehood, you let loose your intent to cast on permanent form, retrievable and available to the global audience, your syndicated tissues of wicked and malicious lies against our client.

As at the date of this demand letter, numerous persons have read your distasteful online publication, 25 persons have commented on your libelous publication. Countless persons have read the offensive publications on the several WhatsApp platforms that you re-published and circulated the false allegations against our client.

Dear Hon. Tobias Chukwudi Egeonu, the willful, deliberate, false and malicious disparaging materials you caused to be published online on your Facebook Wall, Hon. Toby Chuks against our client is reproduced below:-

‘A clown is someone who lacks sound judgement and who does not weigh events before forming an opinion. He is a sheepish follower and very difficult to correct or reorient. Whenever you see someone who joins the bandwagon because many are in the crowd, be sure you have seen a clown.

On the contrary, a sound mind will strike a balance in every matter before forming an opinion. He is sound because he is rational in thinking and not easily swayed by make-believe stories.

Hon. Toby Chuks Egeonu
Public Affairs Analyst and Political Commentator
08/12/24

Now, on the Matter Arising…..
For a time now, the governor of Abia state has been on the crucible and being checked on performance ratings. The question is: why is he struggling to prove his mettle? Why is he paying so much to media for hypes and propaganda? A good product they say does not require advert rather it sells itself. Many people who come under my post to write nonsense do not know anything about Alex Otti. I have known him and can tell more about him than many of us in this media space.

What Alex Otti Cannot Destroy Does not Exist: Vol. 1

I don’t want to talk about his inglorious exit at First Bank which he joined in 2001 from UBA. My focus is how he liquidated Diamond Bank – an organization put up by Paschal Dozie. In 2014, Diamond Bank announced the exit of its Group Managing Director Alex Otti. The Chairman Board of Directors of the bank Igwe Alfred Nnaemeka Achebe went on to heap praises on the departing Otti for his supposed managerial acumen and wished him well in his future endeavors. Shortly after the entrance of Uzoma Dozie as the new GMD, the misjudgment of the performance of Otti became apparent to those on the board of the bank, including Igwe Achebe who has since regretted his glowing praises to Otti, as it emerged that what was deemed to be sterling performance was indeed a study in corporate mismanagement, outright failure, manipulation of books and cover up of brazen proportions, the most massive type ever executed in Nigeria banking industry.

The revelations were so damning that the new management of the bank sacked every staff that joined the bank with Otti, especially those in its risk management office who were brought in by Otti from First Bank where he previously worked and was equally eased out.

In due course, the board of the bank realized the full extent of Otti’s mismanagement of the bank. A year later, the bank had to declare 78% decline in profit as widely reported by many newspapers including Thisday where Otti later pitched his tent as a columnist, after losing to Okezie Ikpeazu of PDP in Supreme Court in the 2015 election.

Meanwhile, the flamboyant private jet-flying Otti had revalued assets of the bank in previous years to cover up its operating losses thereby misleading Igwe Achebe, Chief Paschal Dozie and other directors of the bank while he accumulated massive personal wealth in preparation for running for the Governorship position in Abia State.

His prime attraction was the immunity clause in the constitution. Insiders at the bank recount stories of near bankruptcy of the owners of the bank by the activities of Otti which led to Chief Paschal Dozie selling off his shares in MTN Nigeria to refinance the bank. The banks management also laid off hundreds of staff in its employment roll while Otti stashed away millions of dollars made from his back hand deals in USA with the help of proxies.

Meanwhile, available reports also indicate that Otti surreptitiously tried to execute a hostile take over of Diamond bank from Chief Dozie using a South African front. The discovery of the plot led to the negotiated exit arrangement between Otti and the Board to allow him a honorable exit from the bank to avoid a major scandal that would have seen to the collapse of the bank in 2014. Then Otti took a voluntary but induced resignation.

After that, the bank went bankrupt and was eventually acquired by Access Bank. Before the acquisition by Access Bank, there were  several petitions pending at EFCC against Otti in respect of back hand deals with regards to loans given to an estate company in Port Harcourt and a power generating company in the Southeast. There are also various money laundering schemes involving Otti and many politicians, including a former Governor of Abia state.

Now, Otti has succeeded in ripping off Pascal Dozie. He now floated his own bank – SIGNATURE Bank. With all the money he stole from Diamond Bank and the ones he is stealing from Abia State, he is targeting to capitalize the Signature Bank. How will Pascal Dozie look at the man who he employed and who ended up converting Diamond Bank to Signature Bank.

This is the man in the steering wheel of Abia….”

Our client unequivocally denies in its entirety the false and disparaging online publication on your Facebook Wall, Hon. Toby Chuks captioned; What Alex Otti Cannot Destroy Does Not Exist: Vol. 1’ published on 8th December, 2024 and your subsequent Vol. 2 published through the same medium days after.

Our client informed us and we truly believe him that he has no criminal indictment whatsoever and that the content of your online publication in its entirety are blatant falsehood.

In your unrestrained mission to destroy the reputation of our client for reasons best known to you, you hipped very distraughtly false assertions against our client such as;

manipulation of books and cover up of brazen proportions, the most massive type ever executed in Nigeria banking industry.
First Bank where he previously worked and was equally eased out.

The flamboyant private jet-flying Otti had revalued assets of the bank in previous years to cover up its operating losses thereby misleading Igwe Achebe, Chief Pascal Dozie and other directors of the bank while he accumulated massive personal wealth.

Otti stashed away millions of dollars made from his back hand deals in USA with the help of proxies.”

There were several petitions pending at EFCC against Otti in respect of back hand deals with regards to loans.

There also various money laundering schemes involving Otti…

Now, Otti has succeeded in ripping off Pascal Dozie. He now floated his own bank-SIGNATURE Bank.

With all the money he sole from Diamond Bank and the ones he is stealing from Abia State, he is targeting to capitalize the Signature Bank.

How will Pascal Dozie look at the man who he employed and who ended up converting Diamond Bank to Signature Bank.

Hon. Tobias Chukwudi Egeonu (Hon. Toby Chuks), you intended and truly achieved the objective of your online false publication from the pits of hell against our client to be accessed globally and thereby caused our client unquantifiable mental torture, depression, denigration, corrosive erosion of reputation built over the decades and diminished standing in the eyes and estimation of right-thinking persons of diverse background, particularly, the masses and the electorates of Abia State, the banking/financial community, the Labour Movement in Nigeria, the members of the Adventist Church in Nigeria, his political Associates, his Aides/Appointees, his wife, his children and the general public.

Taking into account the foregoing, it is our instruction to draw your attention to the import and purport of the offensive online publication you made on your Facebook Wall, Hon. Toby Chuks on 8th December, 2024 captioned; What Alex Otti Cannot Destroy Does Not Exist: Vol. 1’ against our client as was understood in its innuendo, ordinary and natural meanings by the global traffic that accessed, downloaded and read your unwarranted defamatory online publication against our client.

That our client has sticky fingers of which anything of value including the resources of Abia State is unsafe under his watch and custody.

That our client is dubious, steep in corrupt practices, corporate raiding and treasury brigandage unheard in the annals of banking in Nigeria.

That our client is a cruel, unscrupulous, mean and unconscionable person who wantonly betrayed the confidence and trust of his employers in his last two places of employment, namely First bank of Nigeria Ltd and Diamond Bank Plc.

That our client is a vicious and treacherous person who is afflicted with deficit in his upbringing and scanty in his professional grooming to the extent that the stature of His Eminence, Igwe Nnaemeka Alfred Achebe, CFR, mni, the 21st Obi of Onitsha and the venerated elder Statesman, Pascal Dozie, CON were not sufficient deterrent for our client to subjugate and render ineffectual the Board of his former employer, Diamond Bank Plc and heartlessly fleece the vault of Diamond Bank Plc.

That our client is a scheming person that conducts himself in a manner unbecoming of his status as the Governor and the Chief Executive of the Government of Abia State.

That our client is profligate, serial abuser of the oath of office of the Governor of Abia State that he subscribed to on May 29, 2023 as our client has criminally converted the money belonging to the Government of Abia State and used the illicit funds to fund his private enterprise identified by you as Signature Bank.

That our client is morally bankrupt, ethically challenged and a misfit to be entrusted with a position of trust over the revenues and the Federal allocations accruable to the Government and the People of Abia State.

OUR PRAYER:

Dear Hon. Tobias Chukwudi Egeonu (Hon. Toby Chuks), it is therefore, the instruction of our client to demand and we hereby demand from you as follows.

A written retraction of your offensive and malicious online defamatory publication of 8th December, 2024 captioned; What Alex Otti Cannot Destroy Does Not Exist: Vol. 1 to be published/circulated on your Facebook Wall Hon. Toby Chuks and the said retraction to be further published in four national dailies to wit; the Thisday Newspaper, the Punch Newspaper, the Nation Newspaper and the national Ambassador Newspaper.

A written APOLOGY from you to our client to be published/circulated on your Facebook Wall ‘Hon. Toby Chuks just as your offensive online defamatory publication of 8th December, 2024 captioned; What Alex Otti Cannot Destroy Does Not Exist: Vol. 1.’

Compensation of N50Billion (Fifty Billion Naira) to our client, for your false and malicious online defamatory publication of 8th December, 2024 captioned; What Alex Otti Cannot Destroy Does Not Exist: Vol. 1 that grossly tarnished the reputation of our client before his colleagues in the financial sector, his political associates and the good people of Abia State that elected him their Governor in 2023.

TAKE VERY CAREFUL NOTICE that should you fail, refuse and/or ignore to comply with our demands as contained herein within SEVEN (7) days from the delivery of this letter to your Facebook Wall, Hon. Toby Chuks and your Phone number/Whatsapp-08031356644 and Phone number/Whatsapp-07063802757 respectively, we shall without further recourse to you seek legal redress for appropriate remedy against you for your malicious online libelous publication against our client graphically recounted herein.

Yours truly,
Deeplaw Associates

Dr. Sonny AJALA, SAN FCI.Arb. (UK).
CONSULTANT COUNSEL”

~ NewsOrient

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