FIJ’s lawyers Slingstone LP have written to Ibrahim Dende Egungbohunmi, a notorious smuggler better known as IBD Dende, asking to be served the originating summons of a suit he filed against FIJ, its founder ‘Fisayo Soyombo and Arise Television.
On Tuesday, February 20, FIJ released the trailer of the investigation — ‘Undercover as a Smuggler’, and followed it up with a multimedia story on Wednesday February 21 and a 16-minute documentary on Thursday February 22.
Among many other things, FIJ’s story had unveiled how smuggling is aided by Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) bosses who take bribes from smugglers and then betray patrol teams by updating smugglers on their colleagues’ itinerary.
It also spotlighted the criminal business history of Dende — whose allies in power is widely known to include Bashir Adewale Adeniyi MFR, the current Comptroller-General of Customs (CGC), Kayode Egbetokun, the Inspector General of Police (IGP), and President Bola Tinubu — in the cross-border movement of goods and arms and ammunition.
In a rebuttal that was first circulated by some obscure online platforms before subsequently gaining ground in traditional newspapers such as Daily Trust, ThisDay, Vanguard, Blueprint and New Telegraph, IBD Dende petitioned Kayode Egbetokun, the Inspector General of Police (IGP), saying FIJ’s investigation amounted to “character assassination with calculated view to achieve damaging effects against IBD Dende and his businesses within and outside Nigeria”.
IBD Dende’s publicist Simon Fakeye also circulated a piece titled ‘Fisayo Soyombo: When a reporter becomes assassin’.
In yet another response to the investigation, IBD Dende’s lawyers Bola Aidi (SAN) & Co. emailed a pre-action letter to FIJ in March, demanding N500 million in damages and a retraction of the Undercover as a Smuggler investigation, among other things. Also at the end of the letter was Arise Television, which gave airtime to the findings of FIJ’s investigation during its popular breakfast programme ‘The Morning Show’.
FIJ’s legal representatives knocked back the letter within three hours of receiving it, writing Bola Aidi with a clear message: see you in court!
FINALLY IN COURT
Earlier this week, a number of newspapers reported that Dende had filed a suit marked CV/2286/24 before a Federal High Court in Abuja asking, among other things, for the court to hold that he was defamed, issue an order compel the defendants to retract the libelous statements and tender an apology to him through their various platforms, and award N5 billion to him as general damages and another N10 million to cover the cost of the litigation.
However, his lawyers have yet to serve FIJ despite previously exchange emails on the preaction letter, prompting FIJ’s lawyers to request service, even if on WhatsApp, in order to eliminate needless procedural delay in the action.
“We reaffirm our legal representation of Mr. ‘Fisayo Soyombo and Foundation for Investigative Journalism and Social Justice (“our Clients”),” read the letter from Slingstone LP, dated Wednesday March 15, 2024.
“Through reports published in the Punch and The Nation Newspapers, our Clients became aware that Alhaji Ibrahim Dende Egungbohunmi, a.k.a IBD Dende, (“your Client”) has instituted an action for alleged defamation before a Court in Abuja. While a one-page General Form of Writ of Summons marked “Concurrent” is widely circulated in the media, we are concerned that the Originating Processes have not been served on our Clients.
“Further to our letter of 28thMarch, 2024, we reiterate our Clients’ instruction to receive the Originating Processes reportedly filed in this suit on their behalf. To eliminate needless procedural delay in the action, you may wish to serve by electronic email or WhatsApp messaging and our Clients would acknowledge it as due service. In any event, our Clients waive in advance any technical objection on the mode of service of Originating Processes.
“Please be assured of our professional regards.”
After the multimedia story and the documentary, FIJ subsequently reported that motorcycles used by bandits and insurgents to inflict terror on innocent civilians, as well as hard drugs, including tramadol, were among the goods being smuggled into northern Nigeria by the NCS, using IBD Dende as conduit.
On March 1, FIJ reported how IBD Dende threatened to kill an Assistant Superintendent of Customs (ASC) who stopped the smuggling of his goods from Benin Republic into Nigeria.
In the first of the two videos attached to the story, a frantic and irate Dende can be heard repeatedly telling the Customs officer, whom he simply identified as Rotimi: “May it never be well with you.”
Despite wielding guns, all the Customs officers in the footage can be seen pacifying Dende, imploring him to calm down. Dende can also be seen bragging, “I have called Ejigbunu”, and ordering the receiver at the other end of the phone: “Call Wale, call Wale.”
The said ‘Wale’ is Bashir Adewale Adeniyi, a Member of the Order of the Federal Republic (MFR) and current Comptroller-General of Customs (CGC). Meanwhile, ‘Ejigbunu’ is Hussein Ejigbunu, the now former FOU Zone A conptroller.
Dende’s repeated boasts about calling Ejigbunu confirm FIJ’s exclusive on how the NCS streamlined the passage of smuggled goods in all six states that make up Zone A to Oja-Odan, Dende’s stronghold, alone, with Ejigbunu detailed to monitor the movements.
“You will find out that the teeth are sharper than the knife. I will show you that I am Dende,” Dende can be heard screaming in the video, while an apparently scared Rotimi can be heard wondering: “What have I done? He is threatening to kill me.”
As can be seen and heard in the second video, one of Dende’s grouses is that Customs officers were also smuggling rice while his own consignment was intercepted.
“I saw your boss’s trailer — four trailers that loaded rice — in Seme,” he can be heard saying. “What did you do about it? I will not accept it! I have told Ejigbunu I will not agree!”
QUIET REDEPLOYMENT OF SPOTLIGHTED OFFICERS
Following a series of ‘good morning’ tweets by Soyombo, as a follow-up to his undercover investigation, the Nigeria Customs Service would remove Hussein Ejibunu as the Controller, Federal Operations Unit Zone A, Ikeja, Lagos, redeploying him to the Customs Headquarters in Abuja.
Also quietly eased out was Ahmadu Shuaibu as Controller of Ogun 1 Area Command of the NCS, moved to head the Federal Operations Unit (FOU) in the Kaduna Area Command.
Customs never released an official statement addressing any of the concerns, though, instead, instead hatching a plan to raise over 15,000 tweets against the journalist.
Source: FIJ
