Senior pastor of Omega Fire Ministries International, Johnson Suleman, has petitioned the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) to sanction Festus Keyamo over alleged statements made against him concerning Stephanie Otobo.
Mr Keyamo was the lawyer of Ms Otobo who in 2018 alleged that she had a romantic relationship with Suleman who went back on his promise to marry her.
Counsel to Suleman, Olayiwola Afolabi, told newsmen in Benin on Sunday that Keyamo failed to retract his statements against Suleman and paid defiance to the letters sent to him by the preacher.
Mr Afolabi added that Keyamo had on March 3, 2017 made allegations against his client.
“While Keyamo made a demand on our client supposedly on the brief of Stephanie Otobo, our client was, ordinarily, the addressee of the said letter.
“However, our client had hardly received and acknowledged receipt of the letter when he followed up with a petition to the Inspector General of Police and an organised media attack on our client.
“As widely accepted in the legal sphere, an addressee of a letter ought to have taken receipt of it before any supposed action would be taken on it; but in this instance, not only did he make it a subject of media gossips, he engaged in active conversations in the public sphere through print and other media on the matter for which our client had no opportunity to debunk the allegations,” Afolabi said.
The Secretary of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Jonathan Taidi, has directed Suleman to within 21 days forward to it a statement sworn before a competent court.
In a statement dated 29th January 2019, the NBA directed Suleman to include in his statement, any witness he may wish to call with “concise statement of material facts to be relied upon in support of the petition,” with other relevant documents.
