Justice Valentine Ashi of an Abuja High Court has struck out a suit by Ogun East senator Buruji Kashamu, against former President Olusegun Obasanjo.
The judge struck out the case after Kashamu filed an application to discontinue the suit, with his lawyers claiming that that parties were engaged in on-going settlement moves.
Obasanjo’s lawyer however denied knowledge of such settlement initiative.
Kashamu had on February 6, 2014, sued Obasanjo, asking the court to award N20bn as aggravated and exemplary damages, and another N100m against the former President for “maliciously and recklessly” publishing a letter titled, ‘Before it is too late’, addressed to ex-President Goodluck Jonathan in December 2013.
The Ogun senator, who is one of the chief financiers of the Peoples Democratic Party in the Southwest, had asked the court to award him N20bn as aggravated and exemplary damages, and another N100m against Obasanjo for maliciously portraying him as a fugitive wanted for drug- related offences in the United States of America.
He had called two of his three proposed witnesses before he decided to withdraw the suit. The two persons who aapered before the court as his witnesses, Haruna Rasheed and Omotayo Alade-Fawole, had testified that the publication of Obasanjo’s letter in the media portrayed Kashamu in a bad light and destroyed their long years of business relationship with him.
But before he could call his third witness, Kashamu on December 5, 2014, moved the court to grant an order restraining Obasanjo from going ahead with the public presentation of his book, “My Watch.”
Kashamu had anchored the prayer on the grounds that the book touched on the subject matter of the libel suit.
But Obasanjo had shunned the court order and went ahead to present the book in Lagos on December 9, 2014.
The plaintiff, however, returned to court on December 10, to report that Obasanjo had flouted the December 5 court order.
Justice Ashi subsequently ruled that Obasanjo was in contempt of court for flouting his orders restraining him from among others, publishing the book.
The judge gave Obasanjo 21 days to show cause why he should not be punished for contempt for going ahead to publish the book in spite of the ex-parte interim order made by the court on December 5 and a pending libel suit before the involving him (Obasanjo).
The judge was however later swayed to lift all orders against Obasanjo in a ruling delivered in April following counter arguments by Obasanjo’s lawyer, Mahmud Magaji (SAN).
Proceedings were to resume on the main libel case, when Kashamu brought an application for the withdrawal of the suit.
