Missing $20bn: Alison-Madueke Sues Media Houses, Individuals

The Minister of Petroleum Resources, Diezani Alison-Madueke,
has sued APC, Premium Times and 9 other individuals and organizations to
restrain them from further reporting on the controversial missing $20billion
oil money involving the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC.

In an application before Justice AFA Ademola of the Federal
High Court, Abuja, Mrs. Alison-Madueke’s lawyer, Godwin Obla, from Obla &
Co., sought and obtained an interim injunction restraining APC, Premium Times
and 9 others from “publishing or causing to be published any further defamatory
statements” stating or suggesting that the minister “stole, misappropriate or
colluded in the stealing of $20billion crude oil revenue”, Premium Times
reports.

Those listed as defendants in the case are the All
Progressives Congress, APC, Vanguard Media Limited and its editor, Mideno
Bayagbon; Leadership Newspapers Group Limited and its editor Ekele Peter Agbo;
Premium Times Services Limited and its editor in chief, Dapo Olorunyomi, and
Vintage Press Limited and its editor, Lekan Otufodunrin.

Also joined in the application were the National Broadcasting
Corporation and the Nigerian Press Council.

The Court directed the two government regulators to ensure
Mrs. Alison-Madueke is not linked in any report regarding the alleged missing
$20 billion either on broadcast media, internet, print or radio.

The court specifically ordered the media houses to “desist
from publishing any materials or running any programmme alluding to the
complicity or collusion” the minister in respect of “$20billion, $49billion or
any other figure, howsoever computed or arrived at, which are
purportedly/allegedly missing or ‘unaccounted’ for”.