Former Aviation minister, Femi Fani-Kayode, has threatens a N6 billion maligning suit against Media Trust limited, the publisher of Daily Trust newspapers and a journalist, Iliyasu Gadu, over a sentiment article.
The disputable piece was a reaction to Mr Fani-Kayode’s obnoxious attack against an Daily Trust newspapers columnist, Charles Eyo, which was broadly revealed a week ago.
The former minister heaved harsh words at the columnist during a public interview in Calabar, the capital city of Cross Waterway Express, an activity generally censured by media experts and associations.
Records of past commitment of Mr Fani-Kayode with writers conscious of PREMIUM TIMES indicated his experience with Mr Eyo is the least annoying.
Meanwhile, after a heavy backlash and boycotts of his press conferences by journalists in different states he visited, Mr Fani-Kayode withdrew his words and apologised for his ‘unwise’ action.
However, in his opinion published on Daily Trust on Sunday, Mr Gadu addressed the issue, describing the former minister as a “Drug Addled Thug In Designer Wears.”
Read more:NUJ blacklists Cross River govt, as journalists shun Fani-Kayode
“Last week, FFK was at his yobbish worst during a press briefing in Calabar where in response to a question from a Daily Trust reporter Eyo Charles as to who was financing the trips he (FFK) had been embarking on round the country, he let rip at the poor reporter. Suddenly FFK who takes it as licence to hurl volleys of invectives at just about anyone in Nigerian public life had his thin skin exposed. Like a boxer with a glassy jaw, which the gentlest of jabs was all that was needed to shatter his thinly covered veneer of respectability was ruthlessly exposed,” Mr Gadu wrote.
In the concluding paragraphs, the writer opined that with “his latest oafish behaviour, it is about time FFK met his comeuppance. His verbal assault at the reporter should be seen as an attack at the very profession that provides him with the necessary oxygen and limelight to remain relevant in the Nigerian public space. If he did to a lawyer in the legal profession he belongs to the journalist in Calabar he would have faced immediate sanctions. (Ask Governor El Rufai).
”Suffice it to say he is not even reckoned with in the legal profession. Even the so-called “charge and bail’’ lawyers one sees often hanging around courtrooms are likely to have better records of achievement in the profession than him.”
