By Vivian Okejeme
Abuja
A United States-based human rights activist and lawyer, Mr. Emmanuel Ogebe, has dragged the federal government to court over 10 Chibok girls schooling in the U.S.
Ogebe, through his lawyer, Barrister David Ogebe, is asking for $5 million for defamation.
Defendants in the suit are the Attorney-General of the Federation, the Minister of Women Affairs, Hajia Aisha Alhassan, and the ministry.
In the suit, the plaintiff accused Hajia Alhassan of telling the whole world at a news conference that the ten Chibok girls his organisation took to the US for studies are not in school.
He said sometime in June 2014, he and some humanitarians who are indigenes of Borno State conceived the “study abroad project” specifically to assist the abducted/escaped Chibok schoolgirls after observing a United States of America congressional fact-finding trip at the time that nothing was being done for them individually and as a group.
He added that to actualise the project, the Education Must Continue Initiative (EMCI) was duly birthed as a non-governmental organisation under Part C of the Companies and Allied Matters Act Cap C20 LFN 2004 to serve as the charity to provide quality education for the escaped Chibok school girls and other victims of the insurgency.
Moreover, the plaintiff through the EMCI and his personal efforts, 10 of the escaped Chibok schoolgirls were granted admission with full scholarships in the United States of America and were subsequently taken to the US where they were enrolled in and began school within a week of their arrival with the Plaintiff duly authorised as their guardian by their respective families.
He added that, despite his effort to get the ten Chibok girls to study abroad, the women affairs minister came out to say that the girls are not schooling in the US.
He is asking the court for the sum of $5,000,000 as exemplary and aggravated damage.
The lawyer is also asking for an order of perpetual injunction restraining the defendants either by themselves or through their privies, from further defaming his character whether by print, electronic or online media.
He is also asking the court to write a letter of apology to him and publish same on all social media news platforms, in two national newspapers in Nigeria and one newspaper circulating in the United States of America.