Moving the motion on Wednesday, Zakari told the court they seek to serve notice on Nwaebonyi by publishing in a national newspaper or through the clerk of the National Assembly or Senate
By Titilope Adako
A High Court of the Federal Capital Territory has ordered that Senator Onyekachi Nwaebonyi, who represents Ebonyi North, be served court documents through a national newspaper in a N5 billion defamation suit filed by Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan.
Presiding judge Angela Otaluka granted the request after Akpoti-Uduaghan’s lawyer, Yahuza Zakari, filed a motion ex parte seeking substituted service due to difficulties in delivering the documents personally.
Moving the motion on Wednesday, Zakari told the court they seek to serve notice on Nwaebonyi by publishing in a national newspaper or through the clerk of the National Assembly or Senate.
“There is need to serve the originating processes and any other incidental process via substituted means in order to bring this matter to the defendant’s attention, owing to the impractical nature of serving the defendant personally,” the application stated.
“That service of the processes by publication in a widely circulated national daily newspaper in Nigeria, or through the clerk of the national assembly or the clerk of the senate, will bring the suit to the attention of the defendant.
“This honourable court has the inherent jurisdiction to grant an order for substituted service with or without an attempt to personally serve, depending on the circumstances. It will be in the interest of justice for service to be effected through substitute means.”
Justice Otaluka granted the request, ruling that the senator should be served via newspaper publication.
The suit, marked CV/1359/2025 and filed in April, stems from comments allegedly made by Nwaebonyi during a Channels Television interview on March 6, 2025.
Akpoti-Uduaghan claims Nwaebonyi called her a “gold digger, habitual liar, and habitual blackmailer.”
The Kogi senator described the remarks as “false, malicious and defamatory,” adding that they had caused “significant harm to her reputation and public embarrassment.”
She also said he described her as “a mother of six from different men.”
She is asking the court to restrain Nwaebonyi from making any further “malicious” statements and to order him to pay “the sum of N5 billion as aggravated and exemplary damages in favour of the claimant for the false, malicious and injurious statement.”
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