Sahara Reporters Publisher, Omoyele Sowore, has dismissed the N10billion defamation suit filed against him by the General Overseer and Founder of Mountain of Fire and Miracles Ministry (MFM), Dr Daniel Olukoya.
Olukoya, in the suit filed before the Akwa Ibom State High Court in Uyo, claims Sahara Reporters Incorporated and the Incorporated Trustees of Sahara Media Foundation have consistently published false and malicious articles against him and his church since 2013.
The cleric said despite complaints, Sowore and Sahara Reporters remained intransigent and continued to publish offending stories about him and his church.
He added that he had earlier demanded that Sahara Reporters pull down all the offending stories against him and his church within seven days but Omoyele and his platform refused.
Responding in a message posted on Facebook on Monday, Sowore, the presidential candidate of the African Action Congress (AAC) for the 2019 election, said there was nothing to worry about.
He said Olukoya had earlier sent an official of the University of Lagos (UNILAG) Alumni Association to him over the rustication of a student activist.
Continuing his criticism of Olukoya, Sowore told his supporters “no one should be worried, these fakes will meet their waterloo someday soon in a new Nigeria.
“They will gang up left, right and center but nothing can stop an idea whose time has come!”
Apart from the N10billion damage, Olukoya cleric and his church are praying the court to order the defendants to “pull down and erase each of the offending stories from the Internet forthwith.”
They also want the court to compel Sowore and Sahara Reporters to “tender a written apology and retraction, published prominently in their online news report and in at least three nationally circulating newspapers and two international magazines, including TIME International.”
The claimants are also praying for an order of perpetual injunction, “restraining the defendants by themselves, their agents, servants, privies or other persons, howsoever called or described from further publishing and/or disseminating libellous stories and statements against the claimants.”
