The management of Media Trust Ltd, publishers of Daily Trust Newspapers, has not been served with the letter by a former Minister of Aviation, Femi Fani-Kayode, demanding N6bn damages over an alleged defamatory publication in the newspaper.
The company’s secretary, Kabir Bala, said this in a statement on Tuesday.
Bala said the fact that the company had not been served “means that we are not aware of what he (Fani-Kayode) is doing; we are only following reports in the social media.”
Fani-Kayode had demanded a retraction of the article “FFK, The Drug Addled Thug in Designer Wears” published on August 30, 2020, written by a columnist, Iliyasu Gadu, as well as an apology in two national dailies.
The article’s writer took on Fani-Kayode over his verbal attack on Daily Trust’s correspondent in Cross River State, Eyo Charles, who had, during a press briefing in Calabar, sought to know who was funding the ex-minister’s tour of southern states.
Fani-Kayode’s lawyer, Adeola Adedipe, gave the company 14 days to “comply with the highlighted mitigating measures, the failure of which will leave our client with no preferred alternative than to seek redress in court.”
Meanwhile, the Nigeria Union of Journalists, Oyo State Council, had after an apology by the former minister, on Monday boycotted a purported press conference by him in Ibadan.
Daily Trust