Otti seeks N100bn damages over Facebook posts by lawyer

Alex Otti, Abia state governor, has demanded N100 billion in compensation from Eze Chikamnayo, a lawyer and former information commissioner, over a series of alleged defamatory publications on Facebook.

In a letter dated October 2, 2025, and signed by Sonny Ajala, a senior advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Otti accused Chikamnayo, who is said to operate the Facebook account “Iyierioba Chikamnayo”, of making “unjustified demonic online defamatory publications” against him.

The governor’s counsel cited several posts, including one titled “Alex Otthief is a confirmed criminal and disaster!” posted on September 22, 2025, and another captioned “Fighting Promax!!!!” on September 21, 2025. Other examples listed were “Old or new Abia?” (September 14, 2025), “Sabbath Message” (September 13, 2025), and “Alex Otthief is a confirmed criminal and congenital liar = looting governor!” (August 15, 2025).

Ajala said Otti, who previously served as managing director/CEO of Diamond Bank Plc, has maintained a “sterling integrity” over the years, adding that the defamatory remarks were intended to instigate public hatred against him.

“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,” Ajala said.

“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 letter said Otti became aware of the posts on September 29 while in Abuja for the conferment of the rank of SAN on Abia’s attorney-general. According to Ajala, the Facebook wall contained “a cocktail of disparaging publications calculated to instigate public hatred against him”.

The lawyer stressed that Otti “unequivocally denies in their entirety your malicious defamatory materials published online”, adding that the governor has “no criminal indictment whatsoever or conviction by any court of law”.

Ajala argued that Chikamnayo’s actions caused “unquantifiable mental torture, depression, denigration, brutal destruction of his reputation built over the decades” and “utterly disfigured and diminished our client’s standing in the eyes and estimation of right-thinking persons”.

Otti’s demands include a written retraction of the posts, to be published both on Facebook and in four national newspapers. He also requested a written apology on the Facebook wall, N100 billion in damages, and an undertaking to desist from further defamatory publications.

Ajala warned: “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… we shall without further recourse to you seek legal redress for the appropriate remedy against you for your malicious online libelous publication against our client graphically recounted herein.”