By CrossRiverWatch Admin
Barrister Utum Eteng, the legal representative of former federal lawmaker, Senator Bassey Otu claims The SUN Newspapers has published a retraction and apology over an alleged ‘false’ advertorial in the DAILY SUN of Monday May 29, 2017.
Mr. Eteng told CrossRiverWatch on Saturday in Ugep, Yakurr local government area that: “Oh that, they (The Sun Newspapers) have published an apology and retracted the publication. They have done that. That was yesterday’s (Friday, June 16, 2017) Sun.”
He however failed to mention whether the national daily disclosed who had paid for the advertorial and paid the sum of NGN200,000,000 demanded by his law firm.
Mr. Otu’s lawyer had written to the management of the national daily drawing its attention to: “The embarrassing, fraudulent and mischief published full page advertorial in the DAILY-SUN of Monday, May 29, 2017 at page A23, wherein an alleged public congratulatory advertorial to Gov. Benedict Ayade was authored and paid for by our client.”
The letter, sighted by CrossRiverWatch claimed that either the management or its correspondent in Cross River State was not “diligent enough to ascertain with precision the true and proper identity of your customer who paid for the said advert in view of the fact that Senator Bassey Otu is a well known Person.”
It said that the act was “tantamount to fraudulent and criminal impersonation of the esteemed person of Senator Bassey Otu, a man of his people,” and demanded several actions be taken by the Media outfit or face litigation.
These included: “A disclosure of who paid for the falsehood to your organization assuming it was not internally authored by your organization. Such a disclosure may be an exception to the general non-disclosure rule enjoyed by the media so far as this borders on crime.
“An immediate retraction of the said publication with a published apology within 48hrs from receipt of this demand,” and “The payment of the sum of N200,000,000.00 (Two Hundred Million Naira) to the herein above named law firm within the said period.”
CrossRiverWatch later obtained the letter of apology from and a copy of last week Friday’s SUN.
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