Hello, A new article you may find interesting has been published on
NewsRescue.com. Details of the article follow; We hope you find this
informative.Best regards, NewsRescueMy Case Against Saharareporters: Blackmail,
Vendetta, Insulation... - US Based Lawyer Apr. 14, 2013
Barr Emeka Ugwuonye
Many people who are just hearing about my case against Saharareporters may
not understand what it is all about. Even some of those who have heard about it
in the past still may not understand the controversy. Even though such things as
1.5 million dollars of Embassy money may have been mentioned several times, that
has little to do with my case against Saharareporters.
Also, let me make it clear to all, my case and my struggle are against the
Nigerian Government. My enemy is the Nigerian Government. My opponents are the
following people: Ambassador Adebowale Adefuye, Mrs. Farida Waziri, Mr. Ibrahim
Lamorde, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Attorney-General Mohammed
Adoke. These are my enemies. The only connection or involvement of
Saharareporters occurred as a coincidence.In 2008, a dispute arose between
me and Saharareporters because Sowore was blackmailing a client of mine,
demanding money from him and threatening to publish more false stories about him
unless a ransom was paid to him. As a lawyer, fear is one thing I have not
known. Even though I had, by 2008, become aware of the dangerous ways Sowore was
operating with his Saharareporters, there was no way I could not confront
him for blackmailing my client. I sent him a warning in December of 2008. I
promised severe consequences if he were to continue. And this was how the
coincidence came about.It happened that around the same time, trouble was
brewing in the relationship between me and the new leadership of the Nigerian
Embassy in Washington. The embassy and the Nigerian Government owed me money and
refused to pay unless we bribed them. They finally signed a retainer that
authorized us to keep 1.5 dollars, which was only a part of what they had owed
us in 8 years of work. Even out of that 1.5 million, they came for their
"cut". But I refused to give them a dime. That was how the storm blew off.In
February of 2009, Sowore became aware of this trouble because the Ambassador
then, General Rotimi, had tried to use Saharareporters to attack the then
Minister of Foreign Affairs, Chief Ojo Maduekwe. The Ambassador's target was
not me. He merely wanted to spread the story that Ojo Maduekwe was involved in
some phantom real estate fraud and that they paid the lawyer (me) 1.5 million
dollars. When Sowore got this story, he saw an opportunity to focus on me rather
than the person he was hired to attack. That was the coincidence.
Saharareporters published in March of 2009 that Emeka Ugwuonye committed
fraud. It was a preemptive strike at me and my law firm. It was also a message
to my client that I could not protect him from Saharareporters. I had to
fight back with a lawsuit for defamation. That is the case Okey Ndibe and other
employees of Saharareporters are talking about.
What really happened in my client's case? In October and November of 2008,
there was a prominent political figure in Port Harcourt. Sowore, working with
Terry Wires, conspired to attack that politician in order to extort money from
him. They accused him of paying money to avoid corruption investigation. The man
was planning to run for the Governorship of his state and such story was
devastating to him. He didn't know what to do. He wanted to sue
Saharareporters. For that, he needed an American lawyer. I happened to be in
Nigeria in December of 2008 and someone who knew me arranged for the man to meet
and brief me. I flew to Port Harcourt where I met with the man. He was so pained
and so bitter about the lies Saharareporters had published against him. He
also revealed to me that Sowore had threatened to publish more damaging
falsehoods about him and his sick wife unless he paid Sowore, I believe, two
hundred thousand dollars in ransom. I was shocked. I saw text messages of
demands for the payment.
I warned the man of the difficulties of trying to sue Sowore in the US because
it would be difficult for him to sustain such a suit because he was based in
Nigeria and would be busy campaigning for his elections. I suggested to him to
take the matter to the police. But we agreed it would be useless since Sowore
was not in Nigerian. We agreed that I should nevertheless warn Sowore of the
consequences of his behavior and let him know that a lawsuit was imminent. That,
I did.
One thing is clear and we all know it now. Never before in the history of
Nigeria did we have a situation like Sowore and Saharareporters. Few factors
make this development unique. First, you have in Sowore a man with a totally
depraved conscience and near inability to appreciate the degree of harm he
caused his victims. Second, this was an online medium, which made it possible
for him to reach thousands of audience with minimum effort. The online
capability was a dangerous weapon if left in the hands of a man without
conscience or sense of accountability. And Sowore is such man. This is a
person that hates humanity. He hates the society. His early life and upbringing
filled him with so much hate and bitterness that he feels that successful people
robbed him his own happiness. He is a man out on a vengeance mission. Not having
ever studied journalism or been part of any journalistic body, he does not
appreciate the ethics of that profession at all.
As a lawyer and a professional, I had ample opportunity to observe Sowore and
his methods. Also, I had the opportunity of sitting down with him and
cross-examining him for six good hours. I had a deep penetration into his
mind and soul. While preparing for the case against Sowore, I received many
complaints from people, including people he robbed while a student in Unilag,
cases of rape involving him, and all other dangerous criminal activities he was
part of before coming to the United States. (I was not surprised to see similar
allegations in the link below).
Another factor that enable Sowore and Saharareporters was that for the first
time ever, you had a situation where someone could publish damaging falsehood
from a location that is beyond the reach of the courts of the place where the
victim is located. The fact is that it is impossible for a person based in
Nigeria to sue Sowore in America. It is nearly impossible. Sowore knew that his
victims could not reach him and he felt safe doing whatever he liked to them.
And with that power, he turned it into big money from blackmails and shakedowns.
Further, when people realized that they had no way to hold Sowore responsible
for his actions, they had two choices: either to pay money for Sowore to leave
them alone or to quietly bear the indignities and abuse. That made Sowore and
his Saharareporters seemingly invincible, enough to blackmail even the
President and his family. All the Governors fear him just because he could
blackmail anybody, and many of them are paying him ransom money.
In addition to this, there is yet another factor that helped Sowore and
Saharareporters. Nigeria is a society so terribly misruled that there has
been a deep-rooted distrust for people in power. It is so easy to believe that a
public official did something wrong. And it is so easy to exaggerate their
wrongdoing. So, the ordinary people in Nigeria are hungry for negative stories
about their oppressive leaders. And Nigerian leadership foolishly encourage this
factor by continuing to run government business and affairs in secrecy and
non-transparent manner. Because government business is shrouded in secrecy,
Sowore knew that the people would not be able to verify the truth in the first
place. So, he would just guess and write anything he likes, as there is nothing
with which to contradict him.
Another factor has to do with the general and widespread gullibility of the
average Nigerian. It doesn't matter how silly a story is, the average Nigerian
is likely to believe it. And you don't blame them. The Government had been
responsible for the decline in the quality of education in the country. I recall
in 1988, as a student of Uniben, I participated in protests over some phantom
story supposedly in the Ebony Magazine, which alleged that General Babangida
owned the biggest watch-making company in Switzerland. I had to mention this
incident because it was a classic example of mass ignorance and folly. Not only
was there no such story in the Ebony Magazine, that was also not the sort of
things that Magazine focused on. And furthermore, owning a watch-making company
would not be a smart way for a corrupt dictator to hide money stolen from his
country. It was a dummy story and yet we protested over it and lost the lives of
a few students over it. Nigeria hasn't changed much even twenty years after.
One final factor that made the phenomenal lies of Saharareporters possible
was the acrimonious and vicious nature of Nigerians when dealing with one
another. Someone is always out there to bring his or her neighbor down. And
Saharareporters had become a suitable weapon for such vendetta. So, the wife
of one Minister who is envious of the wife of another Minister, would sponsor
falsehood against her enemy through Saharareporters. And Sowore would charge
for such service. When a vendetta is sponsored by an insider, it always comes
with some tissue of truth, which is then exaggerated by Saharareporters to
make it sound authentic, all for a fee. Example; the Minister's child is sick
indeed and has gone to the hospital. With that truth about the Minister's
family, Sowore could now approach the Minister and threaten to publish a story
that his child is suffering from epilepsy or HIV Aids. And once
Saharareporters could establish that there was a visit to the hospital, he
tends to believe that everything else in the story would be credible. Faced with
such a situation, the Minister would rather pay money to Sowore and
Saharareporters to avoid such false story being published about his family.
But what Sowore does is criminal. He gets away with it because his victims are
in Nigeria. The Nigerian police cannot reach him and the American police are not
interested where the victim could not reach them. It is a perfect crime scenario
for Sowore.
Through, Sowore and Saharareporters became so powerful that even powerful
people feared them. Take for instance the link below. You can see a former IG of
Police literally crying that Saharareporters is out to destroy him. That's
power, an evil power, to harm others. Can you believe that even the EFCC Boss
was afraid of Saharareporters ability to lie against her such that she was
willing to please Sowore. For instance, EFCC agreed to supply Sowore with any
information he wanted about me provided he would refrain from ever publishing
any negative story about the EFCC or Mrs. Farida Waziri. Sowore kept to his part
of this deal. For instance, between January 2010 and January 2011,
Saharareporters ran over six negative stories about the EFCC Chairman. I was
arrested by EFCC in February of 2011. And between February 2011 and January
2012, Saharareporters did not run even one single negative story against the
EFCC. Even when the Human Right Watch filed a damning report against the EFCC,
Saharareporters said nothing. Even when Mrs. Farida Waziri was found to have
forged her certificates or lied about her qualifications,
Saharareporters did not publish a word of it. And even when Mrs. Waziri was
fired for corruption, Saharareporters said nothing. It was all because there
was a deal on my head.
Also, Sowore blackmailed the EFCC into sabotaging my case in order to detain me
in Nigeria long enough for the case I filed against him in American to be
dismissed. That's how dangerous the little man Sowore had become simply
because of the combination of the above factors.
THE NEW REALITY: The fact is that so much has changed since 2009. From
defamation suit to an involvement in torture and illegal detention, Sowore is
not going to leave the courts for the next 10 years. Those of his friends who
are celebrating what they call victory have no idea what awaits him in the
future as far as the law courts are concerned.
Also, a lot about Sowore and Saharareporters has come to light. He is not
the same outfit people thought he was. He is a plain criminal and more will be
revealed about his methods and operation. Besides, he doesn't have monopoly
anymore over online communications. He will come under more and more
pressure to give up his criminal methods and revert to genuine journalism. The
only problem with that is that he lacks the talent to compete in the market for
legitimate journalism. So, it is fair to say that the days of
Saharareporters are numbered.
Barr Emeka Ugwuonye
Editor's Note:We are making efforts to get the reaction of Sahara Reporters
Team on this allegation.
Dear Mr Sowore and Team..Kindly find the allegation against your team by Barr
Ugwuonye..We ve sent previous messages without a response..We ll appreciate your
kind response...Chris Kehinde Nwandu (Editor, CKN Nigeria)Link to the article:
http://newsrescue.com/my-case-against-saharareporters-blackmail-vendetta-insulation-us-based-lawyer/Link
to NewsRescue.com: http://newsrescue.com
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