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Anambra State High Court 2, sitting in Ogidi, Idemili North LGA of Anambra State, has struck out a defamation suit lodged by Rev. Emeka Abone, Vice Chairman of The Sun Newspapers, against his elder brother's wife, Mrs. Kasie Abone.

Emeka, who hails from Nnokwa in Idemili South Local Government Area, had brought Kasie, a seasoned journalist, to the High Court in 2019 over allegations of defamation. However, on January 25, 2021, the case was dismissed, only to be reinitiated by the same plaintiff (Rev. Abone) two years later, on February 16, 2023.

Subsequently, when the case, identified by suit number HID/261/2019, came before Justice Chukwudi Nwankwo of High Court 2 in Ogidi on October 10, 2023, it was ultimately dismissed. The plaintiff was directed to pay a ₦100,000 fee to the defendant before further proceedings.

During the court proceedings, both parties were absent, with no legal representation for the plaintiff. Christopher Oko Esq. stood in for the defendant, Kasie, and informed the court that the matter was previously adjourned for PTC (pre-trial conference), although the defendant was appealing the 16th of February, 2023, ruling to re-list the case.

In the quashed suit, Emeka Abone, a former Slok Group Managing Director, had accused Kasie of tarnishing his reputation on multiple occasions, including through a petition she submitted to their village elders. The plaintiff made numerous claims against the female journalist, asserting that she had labeled him a diabolical person, a killer, and a deceitful individual who took her husband's land.

He contended that Kasie had depicted him as heartless, wicked, and conspiring with others to inflict hardship on her family, even suggesting he had attempted to harm her for opposing his actions.

He had accused Kasie of referring to him and his wife as "manufacturers and distributors of elephantiasis," with his wife being described as a "self-confessed diabolical, occultic, evil, and satanic witch" who tried to entice her into devilish practices.

The plaintiff further alleged that the journalist had falsely accused him of secretly seeking to manipulate her husband, Okey, into consulting a native doctor for charm, advising her husband to keep it a secret.

However, individuals familiar with the case disclosed that due to ongoing harassment, intimidation, threats, and false accusations against Kasie, she felt compelled to petition the Elders Council, Nnokwa. This council is responsible for addressing allegations of diabolism in the town, with the aim of clearing her name and proving her innocence.

Reportedly, rather than accepting the Elders Council's invitation to substantiate his allegations against her, Emeka Abone instead initiated the now-dismissed case against Kasie at Ogidi High Court.

In her defense statement, filed in March 2020 through her counsel, F. Chijioke Okoli (SAN) of Delphi Law Advisory, Ezeoguine Chambers, the defendant and journalist urged the court to disregard some of her brother-in-law's claims, as they contradicted the truth.

Kasie stated that the plaintiff was the primary source of her marital difficulties, influencing her husband, Mr. Okechukwu Abone, to withdraw his love for her. She revealed that the plaintiff had never liked her before she married her husband, and his opposition persisted even after their marriage.

Kasie explained that the plaintiff continuously encouraged her husband to abandon or divorce her in favor of a younger woman. She maintained that her actions, which the plaintiff considered slanderous, were reactions to false allegations and rumors circulated by the plaintiff and his wife and siblings.

Kasie said before she got married to her husband, Okechukwu, the Plaintiff never liked her and that as of 2016 when the Plaintiff claimed that the defendant got married to Okechukwu Abone, the marriage had been 10 years gone.

“Before the marriage and while Okechukwu Abone was still based in the United States of America, whenever the Defendant called the Plaintiff on the phone to check up on him as his brother’s fiancé, Plaintiff would retort that Defendant was the reason their brother, Okechukwu Abone had stopped calling or caring for his siblings. Yet the Defendant did not stop caring about her potential husband’s family,” Kasie wrote in the statement.

She said, “On 30/11/2005, the night Okechukwu Abone returned to Nigeria but before the Defendant got married to him, the Defendant told Okechukwu Abone her age and on the next day 1/12/2005 at her house after Emeka Abone forced them out of his house on account that he did not want the Defendant to stay in his house with his brother, Okechukwu Abone, every other detail about herself and her family.”

In return, “the defendant asked her husband (Okechukwu) to leave her house and return to his family and be sure that they all agree to the marriage as she did not want to be in a family where some people would not like her.”

Kasie said her husband, Okechukwu, “refused to leave but was going to meet with his family from her residence in Lagos. After some days he told her that Plaintiff had hung on to her age as being old, ugly, and unbefitting of Okechukwu Abone to marry the Defendant. Okechukwu Abone however got married to the Defendant regardless of the Plaintiff’s and his other sibling’s protestations.”

She said after she had gotten married to Okechukwu each time he went to visit his younger brother, the Plaintiff, at his residence, he would return to tell her that the Plaintiff still insists that he should not have married her.

“The Plaintiff always encouraged the Defendant’s husband, Okechukwu Abone, to abandon or divorce the Defendant and get married to a younger lady.”

The journalist told the court that at any time she had to make imputations which Plaintiff considers slanderous has always been in reaction to false allegations and rumors about her and her family being spread by the Plaintiff and his wife, and his siblings.

She said on one occasion, her husband told her that the Plaintiff and his siblings blamed him for marrying her as a wife and that she behaved like her mother who they allegedly said was a prostitute and committed abomination.

She revealed that these rumours and false allegations exacerbated the issues in her marriage, prompting her to petition the Umuokpala kindred, an adjudicatory body for the Umuokpala kindred. She reported the plaintiff and his siblings in 2017, exposing alleged diabolical and evil plots within the Abone family, to which she had become privy since joining the family.

Kasie asserted that her petition and publications were made in good faith to serve a legitimate purpose, based on her belief that the facts she presented were true.