By Sunny Ikhioya
THE trial Judge asked the respondent’s counsel: Have you ever lost any case since you started practice? The counsel answered, yes. The Judge continues: You have lost some and won some? The counsel answered, yes. The Judge then concluded: “When you go about slandering people with the press and social media, because a judgement did not go in your favour, you are destroying the institution to which you belong.”
Meanwhile, the Chairman of the Nigerian Union of Journalists, Edo State chapter, Sir Roland Osakue is in court. He asked for the Judge’s permission to address the court. In his address, he told the court that he and his colleagues were in court to find out the source of those strange stories. He said that no journalist in Edo State, where the case was being tried, took part in writing it, which is a very strange practice. The Judge then admonished them to save the institution by publishing facts, adding that he was standing by his judgement, which was motivated by the need to protect lives.
What is the story? It is the story of how some people, in connivance with some lawyers, deliberately misled the press into publishing falsehood in the divorce suit between Chief Leemon Ikpea and his first wife, Mrs. Agnes Ikpea. Somehow, the relationship between Leemon and Agnes broke down and Leemon had filed for a divorce in a Benin City High Court – both parties are from Edo State – and the respondents were asking the court to move the suit from Benin City to Lagos because it will not be convenient for them to pursue the case from Lagos.
The Judge, after listening to the submission of both counsels, gave his ruling, which I will summarise as follows: Because of the incendiary nature of the relationship between both parties, it will not be safe for both of them to live together for now, until the final determination of the suit. Therefore, Leemon is to provide a decent accommodation for Agnes throughout the duration of the case; he is also to provide all the enablements to make her conveniently pursue the case until its final determination. If she chooses to reside in their house in Benin City, she is free to do so; but in this instance, Leemon will vacate the house for her and will not go there until the case is decided.
Furthermore, as a guarantee to abide with the court decision, Leemon was to provide a bank bond of N5 million value, which was to be presented to the court at the next date of hearing, fixed for March 3, 2021. Not long after, lawyer to Agnes called Leemon’s lawyer to say that she wanted to move out of their Banana Island residence. The information was relayed to Leemon who obliged her request to move out. The manner in which she moved out was properly recorded and documented with her things neatly packaged in different types of boxes. That was the way she moved out of their Banana Island residence.
It is important to note that all happening in court at this stage did not constitute the main suit. In fact, Agnes’ lawyers are requesting that the case be transferred to another court, which decision is still pending. Unfortunately, without waiting for the court to take its due process, some people from the respondents side took matters in their own hands by deliberately misleading the public about the goings on in the case. They deliberately fed the social media with lies and concoction of what never happened, thinking that a smear campaign will weaken Leemon’s resolve.
For those who know him, Chief Ikpea is a very shy and reticent person who is only concerned with his business. Maybe, the belief of his detractors is that by going to the social media to smear him will cause him to yield their demands. So, they attacked him and even extended the attack to the mainstream news media. The media went into overdrive without bothering to investigate the allegations, which implied that there are strong forces behind these attacks. However, one thing those instigating these attacks fail to realise is that this is a family matter; anyway the judgement goes, it is still within the family.
The Judge reminded all to remember that “what you give to others, is what you will receive”; those plotting and destroying people’s image in social media must take note of this admonition. Over time, we have noticed in Nigeria that some legal practitioners chose to perform their businesses on the pages of newspapers. There is nothing wrong with this, as long as they are telling the truth, but when they deliberately misconstrue and start peddling false information to the press, because they want a case to go in their favour, that is another matter altogether and it is very bad.
Chief Ikpea is a first grade philanthropist; if he can do so much for outsiders, what do you expect him to do for his wives and children. The respondent in this case, as the first wife of Leemon, has property scattered over different locations. Her children have also been comfortably established in their own houses; there is no one among them that can claim that he or she is in want. So, the report that that they have been thrown out of the house is not true.
According to a seasoned journalist, Charles Groenhuijsen, who has been in the profession for over 40 year: “Good news is no news”. Journalists “…see a mirror that is fogged up, it is always the negative side of life”. That is what we have become, but that is not the way to move our society forward. Everyone wants Nigeria to make progress and develop like other advanced societies but we cannot make progress if we deliberately kill the institutions that will keep our structure intact. We can overlook those malicious and hateful things we see in our different social media platforms but how do you explain a situation where the mainstream is sucked into it. We complain that nothing is moving in Nigeria, yet we are the ones responsible for this through our actions.
Many people have suffered unjustly because of wrong attack from the media and in the end, after all the evidences and facts are presented in court, the expected outcome turn out to be different. Is it not a surprise that our chief at EFCC was booted out disgracefully and replaced with another despite media trials? Is it not a surprise that some top officials of the All Progressives Congress, APC, are considering bringing back Goodluck Jonathan after all the damages that they have done to his name? If he was not the Head of State, I am sure that he would have been facing court trials today.
The case of Leemon and Agnes Ikpea must be a lesson to all of us; it is not always what we read that is the truth. It is also an affirmation that the social media is filled up with garbage, which we must all try to dispose off.
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