Kayode Fayemi, a former governor of Ekiti State, has sued Arise TV and Kayode Otitoju, a former commissioner for information in the state, for allegedly defaming him and airing offensive broadcasts against him with the intent to cause harm in the amount of N500 million.

For allegedly disparaging remarks made by the commissioner as an analyst on the television station on November 22, 2022, the former governor is seeking N250 million from Arise TV and another N250 million from Otitoju.

Fayemi is requesting that the first defendant (Otitoju), who made the defamatory remarks while appearing as an analyst on Arise TV, retract them in the lawsuit, HAD/10/2023, which was filed on January 25, 2023, before an Ekiti State High Court and made available to newsmen on Sunday through his attorney, Babatunde Oke.

Additionally, Fayemi sought a formal apology that was printed online and in at least three Nigerian national publications. A perpetual injunction prohibiting the defendants from making any more false claims or publications about him is another request he makes to the court, along with a demand that they pay him N20 million to cover the expense of the lawsuit. Additionally, from the moment the judgment was rendered until the money was completely liquidated, there was a 10% interest charge on the judgment amount.

Fayemi claimed that the defendants’ false and reckless, malicious statements had exposed him and caused him to suffer from “unwarranted embarrassment, public ridicule, opprobrium, odium, and unprecedented disrepute.” He described these statements as mere fabrication and falsehood planned to tarnish his good reputation and image as an upright man and to ruin his future political career.

He said that Otitoju made multiple false and hurtful accusations about him on the aforementioned program, referring to him (Fayemi) as “the problem we have in Ekiti.”

These, he said, included accusing him of colluding with the Federal High Court, Ado Ekiti Judicial Division judge, Justice Babs Kuewumi, to perpetrate perversion of justice in the suit filed by an All Progressives Congress governorship aspirant, Kayode Ojo, against the governorship primary victory of Biodun Oyebanji on January 27, 2022.