Court Orders Substituted Service Of Otti’s N100bn Lawsuit Against Ex-Commissioner

A Federal Capital Territory High Court has granted Abia State Governor, Dr. Alex Otti, leave to serve court processes in his N100bn defamation suit against a former Commissioner of Information in the state, Hon. Barr. Eze Chikamnayo, through Facebook and WhatsApp.

Justice J.E. Obanor, in a ruling delivered on October 16, 2025, approved the application for substituted service to enable the governor serve the writ of summons and other court documents on Chikamnayo via his Facebook wall, ‘Iyierioba Chikamnayo’, and his phone and WhatsApp number.

The court adjourned the case to January 19, 2026 for hearing.

In the motion ex parte heard by the court, Governor Otti’s counsel, Dr. Sonny Ajala, had prayed the court for “An order granting leave to the Claimant/Applicant through the Bailiff of the honorable court to serve the writ of summons and the accompanying statement of claim in Suit No. FCT/HC/CV/3921/2025 together with the Hearing Summons and other processes to be filed by the Claimant and subsequent Hearing Notices relating to this suit be effected on the Defendant by means of substituted service on the Defendant’s advertised Facebook Wall. ‘Ivierioba Chikamnavo wherein the online publication to wit; on 22/9/2025, ‘Alex Otthief is a confirmed criminal and disaster (and other such online publications) that gave rise to the suit before the honorable court were published and/or through the Defendant’s Phone/Whatsapp number-[withheld]; the two means having been used to deliver successfully the Claimant’s Solicitor’s letter of demand dated October 2, 2025 to the Defendant to retract the offensive online publications.”

The suit, filed before the Federal Capital Territory High Court on October 8, follows Otti’s earlier letter demanding retraction of the posts, which Chikamnayo allegedly failed to honour.

In the court documents seen by THE WHISTLER, Governor Otti, through his lawyer, Dr. Sonny Ajala, is seeking “A declaration that the Claimant’s reputation, respect, goodwill and standing as a person, husband, father and a political leader has been grossly injured and the Claimant has suffered grave damage owing to the Defendant’s persistent false and malicious online publications of contents defamatory of the Claimant on the Defendant’s Facebook Wall titled; ‘Iyierioba Chikamnayo with 6.4K (six thousand, four hundred) followers.”

The lawsuit referred to several Facebook posts published between July and September 2025, including posts captioned “Alex Otthief is a confirmed criminal and disaster” on September 22, 2025; “fighting promax” on September 21, 2025; “old or new Abia?” on September 14, 2025; “Sabbath Message” on September 13, 2025; “Still on the matter” on September 9, 2025; “Alex Otthief is A confirmed criminal and congenital Liar=Looting Governor” on August 15, 2025; and “Government of Alex Otthief for Zignature Bank=Ruin Abia” on July 21, 2025.

Otti is further seeking an order directing Chikamnayo to pay him “general damages of N100,000,000,000.00 (One Hundred Billion Naira) only for the loss of reputation, psychological and emotional trauma suffered by the Claimant owing to the falsehood and malicious online publications of contents defamatory of the Claimant.”

The suit also wants the court to order the defendant to tender unreserved apology for “each of the cocktail of the malicious online publications” with the apology to be published on Chikamnayo’s Facebook wall and in Thisday Newspaper, the National Ambassador Newspaper, the Punch Newspaper and the Nation Newspaper.

The governor further wants an order of perpetual injunction of restraining the defendant from “writing, authoring, sharing, broadcasting, voicing, forwarding and/or syndicating the writing and publication of contents defamatory of the Claimant on the Defendant’s Facebook Wall; ‘Iyierioba Chikamnayo and/or any other social/digital media platforms such as the ‘X, the Instagram, the Telegram, the WhatsApp, the Tiktok, including the traditional media to wit; the newspaper houses, the radio and television stations of all descriptions.”

Otti also is also demanding N250m as cost of prosecuting the suit.

Chikamnayo was ordered to enter an appearance within thirty days of being served the writ or risk judgment delivered in his absence.

THE WHISTLER reported that in the earlier demand letter dated October 2, 2025, Ajala, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, had stated: “Our client for the avoidance of doubt is the only Governor and Chief Executive of a State within the 36 States of Nigeria who bears the name Alex Chioma Otti, thus no effort is required by members of the public to link all your spiteful, false and defamatory attacks to our client either by direct name calling or by other variant of the name Alex Chioma Otti by way of caricature, pun, simile, metaphor, onomatopoeia and/or metonymy…”

The SAN noted that his clients integrity has remained stainless over the years, citing his “distinguished career” in the banking sector where he rose to become Managing Director/Chief Executive of Diamond Bank Plc before venturing into politics.

According to the demand letter, Governor Otti’s attention was drawn to the defamatory posts on September 29, 2025, while he was in Abuja attending the conferment of the rank of Senior Advocate of Nigeria on Abia State’s Attorney-General.

Ajala said the governor found the “disparaging publications calculated to instigate public hatred against him” on Chikamnayo’s Facebook wall.

The SAN had noted in the letter that his client “unequivocally denies in their entirety your malicious defamatory materials published online,” adding that “he (Otti) has no criminal indictment whatsoever or conviction by any court of law and thus declares unequivocally that the content of your online publications” as falsehood.

Ajala argued that Chikamnayo’s actions amounted to “unquantifiable mental torture, depression, denigration, brutal destruction of his (Otti’s) reputation built over the decades” and “utterly disfigured and diminished our client’s standing in the eyes and estimation of right-thinking persons.”

The demand letter had given Chikamnayo seven days from delivery to comply with the governor’s demands, warning: “Take very careful notice that should you fail, refuse and/or ignore to comply with our demands as contained herein within seven (7) days from the delivery of this letter… we shall without further recourse to you seek legal redress for the appropriate remedy against you for your malicious online libelous publication against our client graphically recounted herein.”