Irked by the public condemnation that met its opinion polls, which awarded 60.3% of the total votes in April elections to President Jonathan, huhuonline.com has learnt that Leaders and Company publishers of THISDAY newspapers has commenced legal actions at the Federal High Court, Abuja, against four men who faulted their opinion polls.
Specifically, Messers Joe Igbokwe and Alhaji Ibrahim Modibbo, both of Action Congress of Nigeria, Yinka Odumakin of Congress for Progressive Change and Cletus Akwaya of the Peoples Democratic Party are being sued for impugning the integrity of the newspaper.
In addition, they are also being sued for imputing wrong motives against the editors of THISDAY in the discharge of their duties as enshrined in the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
According to THISDAY, the four men are trying to intimidate and harass its journalists with a view to stopping them from publishing the results of the ongoing and weekly THISDAY/Ipsos Poll ahead of the 2011 general election because the poll results, in a particular edition, did not favour their principals.
Huhuonline.com understands that the four men are being sued in the sum of N10 billion each in their personal capacities...
As huhuonlone.com published previously,
Two leading opposition parties in Nigeria, Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) has condemned THISDAY newspapers opinion poll which affirmed that President Goodluck Jonathan will receive 60.3% of the total votes during April polls.
Mr. Joe Igbokwe, publicity Secretary of ACN labelled ThisdayNewspapers “the number one enemy of Nigeria”.
In his words; “This is the fraudulent business Thisday newspaper has been known for since 2003 and it is all about politics of the stomach”.
“This paper did it for a fee in 2003. They did it again in 2007 for N3 Billion Naira and in 2011, these hungry guys are repeating it again. This is impunity taken to a frightening dimension”.
“For a huge fee that runs into several billions of Naira this shameless newspaper is preparing the ground for PDP to rig the 2011 election as it did in 2003 and 2007”.
“This is silly, petty, meaningless and unacceptable”
In the same vein, Engr. Rotimi Fashakin, National Publicity Secretary of Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) , said “ the current publications which awarded 60.3% of the votes to be cast by long suffering Nigerians to Jonathan and PDP who are their “Tormentors-in-Chief”, looks like a last ditch effort by the PDP and its candidate to justify the massive electoral fraud they have planned to unleash on Nigerians”.
