Broadcasting
Femi Falana, SAN: Your Client’s Publication on Zinox Chairman, a Cheap Blackmail
By E. Ezuka
I have followed with interest the case of what appears to be an attempted blackmail by your client, Mr. Benjamin Joseph of Citadel Oracle Concepts Limited, an Ibadan-based ICT retail firm against the Zinox Chairman, Mr. Leo Stan Ekeh, his wife, TD Africa and staff and Access Bank Plc. for some time now as a disinterested observer. However, I was recently moved to take an interest in the case after a lawyer friend of mine went to great lengths to verify from the facts on ground from the respective authorities. Now, I am moved to comment following what I consider an unacceptable media slander to denigrate the character of the Zinox owner.
The only sin Mr. Ekeh’s company committed is extending documented interest-free credit facility to your client when he couldn’t fund an IT supply business which the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) awarded his company and 12 other companies. After the FIRS paid all suppliers funded by Technology Distributions Ltd. (TD Africa), other companies paid TD the invoice sum of the laptops supplied on credit to them as agreed.
However, your client tried to divert TD’s fund.
It is important to state here that your client’s application for credit was initially rejected based on lack of credit history with TD. However, his partner, Princess Kama and her uncle, one Chief Onny Igbokwe, a long-time customer of TD’s, intervened on his behalf.
Therefore, when he tried to hold back remitting the funds for the laptops supplied on credit by TD, his partner, Princess Kama who, handled the transaction on behalf of his company (he issued a letter of authority to Princess Kama as his company’s legal representative and submitted it with a copy of his passport to the FIRS) refused as the credit was guaranteed by Chief Igbokwe. After TD was paid, your client Benjamin Joseph started fighting his partner, Princess Kama, on profit share which lasted two years and was at a point handled by a distinguished lawyer – Chief Afe Babalola – who pleaded with Princess Kama to consider increasing the profit share due to Benjamin Joseph a little bit, but your client wanted all.
It was at this point that your client changed the story that he was not aware of the contract and that his company was used to defraud the FIRS, adding that nothing was supplied to the FIRS. This, I understood, was in order to try and blackmail the owners of TD to extort money from the company. He sponsored some fake press releases against the Zinox Chairman, his wife and Access Bank so that he could have access to Mr. Ekeh. When he visited Lagos from Ibadan to meet Mr. Ekeh on one occasion, the Zinox Chairman refused to see him because he was classified a blackmailer.
Your client had initially reported the case to the Police Special Fraud Unit (SFU) Milverton Road, Ikoyi. The SFU conducted investigations and indicted him on the basis that a forensic analysis report stated that he signed the board resolution which he said was forged. He thereafter lodged another petition to the Police Headquarters, Abuja, who after investigations and confirming that he was lying, charged him to court in 2016 in suit CR/216/2016 (IGP vs. Benjamin Joseph) for false information before Honourable Justice Peter Kekemeke. The Police (Prosecution) has since closed their case since 2018 and your client is supposed to open his defence.
Instead of defending himself, he is running around with your help, to have the Attorney General to discontinue the criminal case against him. My investigation at the Ministry of Justice revealed that your chambers once applied to the AG with a letter dated November 1, 2018, for a Fiat, which you invariably wanted to use to discontinue the criminal proceedings against Benjamin Joseph, so that he would not defend the criminal charges against him. But the AG refused that your 2018 application. Thereafter, your client went to procure some spurious “reports” said to have been made in 2015 and in 2020, which you, again, used to apply for another Fiat.
But my further investigations at the Force Headquarters Abuja shows that the Police have, by a comprehensive report dated December 1, 2020, discredited and disclaimed all those “reports” which your client is parading and with which you tried to get the Honourable AG to grant you a Fiat in May 2022. However, when the AG further reviewed the file and saw through the discrepancies in your application for the Fiat, the AG reversed himself and issued a new letter to the Police dated 6th June 2022, directing the Police to prosecute your client, Benjamin Joseph, to a logical conclusion. For instance, your chambers failed to disclose to the AG that there is a subsisting judgment of the FCT High Court in Suit No. FCT/HC/CR/244/2018, given by Honourable Justice Danlami Senchi on 24th February 2021, against your client to pay N20million as damages for false petitioning and to serve as a deterrent against persons who would give Police or the EFCC false information as your client did. This was following the petition your client made on same set of facts and allegations to the EFCC through the Vice President.
Yet, you are applying for Fiat to prosecute the same persons your client is asked by a subsisting judgment to pay N20million as damages! That same judgment absolved these same persons of all the allegations made by your client.
I would also like to point out that the Federal Government, through the office of the Attorney General of the Federation and Inspector General of Police have instructed the court to prosecute your client, Mr. Benjamin Joseph to logical conclusion, with letters dated 6th June, 2022 and 26th September, 2022 respectively, for false information at the FCT High Court, before Honourable Justice Peter Kekemeke. Yet, the latest release being circulated by your client states that you are filing charges against Mr. Ekeh, Mrs. Ekeh, Chris Eze Ozims, Shade Oyebode and other persons named in the publications. Meanwhile, your client was in court on the 27th of September 2022 and the letter of the AG dated 6th June 2022 and the letter of the IGP dated 26th September 2022, to continue the prosecution of your client were already in the court file. Your client was called upon to give evidence for his defence. He could not defend himself but rather sought an adjournment.
Yet, your client quickly rushed to the press on the 29th (2 days after) to blackmail innocent persons with reckless allegations contained in various online publications. All these acts are capable of making one believe that they are not directed to meet the ends of justice but just to embarrass and humiliate Mr. Ekeh, the Chairman of Zinox, his wife, and his staff.
It is libellous to insinuate that a distinguished tech entrepreneur who has built the largest ICT group on the continent, as well as his wife and few others have been indicted by Police and EFCC. It is all false. The release indicated that the Police SFU and the EFCC indicted Mr. Ekeh, Mrs. Ekeh, Mr. Ozims, Mrs. Oyebode, Mr. Adigwe. Could you please release these reports from the SFU and the EFCC to the public for us to read? I have made enquiries at EFCC and the Police Headquarters to confirm this claim and both confirmed there was no such invitation and indictment. The spurious Police reports which your client is parading were not made by the SFU who investigated the case. Your client rather procured a certain “report” from a Police agency in Abuja, which did not investigate the case and which the Police Headquarters Abuja has disclaimed in their FINAL report dated 1st December 2020 on this matter. Yet, your client is parading these fake and discredited reports. I am sure you know that your client who reported cases has been unable to substantiate and defend the case he reported at the courts till date and is instead begging the Attorney General to withdraw the case. I have taken the pains to give you specific dates of letters and reports and particulars of all the cases, to demonstrates the truthfulness of my findings. Anybody can thus verify them.
For your information, Technology Distributions (TD Africa) which is run by Mrs Chioma Ekeh, a first-rate Mathematician, FCA, MBA is the largest ICT products distribution company in the sub- Saharan Africa and has a revolving credit to ICT vendors of $75m in the last eight years. This was why your client could be extended an interest-free credit to execute the job for which he could not secure a bank loan. Mr. Ekeh and his Board are persons of integrity and please feel free to confirm this from industry players. Yet, he sponsored a publication which states that 12 persons including Access Bank conspired to defraud him of N170m. Are they hungry as to collectively tarnish their integrity with a mere N170m contract?
Indeed, your client owes an apology to Mr. Ekeh, a serial digital entrepreneur and well-known promoter of trust economy and digital democracy, who I consider the main target in this charade. Let me share a few facts. In the last 35 years, he has built the largest ICT group in Africa with companies in four continents without borrowing a kobo or owing any bank for that matter (please check with Nigerian banks). He believes he is a child of trust economy and has succeeded with it. His companies have executed the biggest ICT projects in Africa and some Arab countries and so not desperate to cheat any person. His companies also employ thousands of quality Nigerian staff. He may be extremely humble but not stupid.
Mr. Ekeh enjoys the privilege of being the only African with revenge insurance (please check global database if you are given access). He is humble to a fault and that is why he is tolerating your client. He once told his friend after investigating your client with paid foreign detectives that Mr. Joseph is broke and working as small blackmailer for competitors to some of his companies and that it was a waste of time looking in his direction.
Finally, Mr. Falana, I would like you to ask that if the claim made by your client in that publication are substantiated, please publish the court, Police and EFCC report that indicted Mr. Ekeh, his wife, and all the other names mentioned including Access Bank. If you have this evidence, I shall apologize to you publicly for seeing the publication by your client as a cheap blackmail.
I believe that irrespective of how long it takes, justice will eventually have its way in this long-drawn case.
Broadcasting
NBC Files Fresh Appeal against Judgment Barring it from Imposing Fines on Broadcast Stations
National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) has filed an application seeking the permission of the court of appeal to file a fresh appeal against the judgement of the federal high court in Abuja barring it from imposing fines on erring broadcast stations.
In the application filed at the court of appeal in Abuja by Dapo Akinosun, counsel to the NBC, the commission argued sanity in Nigeria’s broadcasting sector is under threat and that the public interest would be better served if the court grants the application.
On January 17, 2024, Rita Ofili-Ajumogobia, a judge at the federal high court in Abuja, restrained the NBC from imposing a N5 million fine on broadcast stations sanctioned in 2022 over allegations of “undermining Nigeria’s national security by broadcasting documentaries on banditry in Nigeria”.
The affected broadcast stations were Multichoice Nigeria Limited, owners of DSTV; TelCom Satellite Limited (TSTV); Trust-TV Network Limited; and NTA StarTimes Limited.
The suit was filed by Media Rights Agenda (MRA).
Dissatisfied with the ruling, the NBC appealed the judgement filed an appeal at the court of appeal in Abuja.
In June, the court of appeal dismissed the commission’s appeal, holding that it was “fundamentally defective” and incompetent.
Jane Inyang, lead judge of the panel, held that the parties before the lower court were identified as “Incorporated Trustees of Media Rights Agenda (as applicant) and National Broadcasting Commission (as respondent)” but in the notice of appeal the purported appellant was described as the “Nigerian Broadcasting Commission”,
The judge held that the discrepancy was significant and that the court lacked jurisdiction to entertain the commission’s appeal.
In the application, the NBC urged the court to grant it leave to raise and argue a fresh issue on appeal relating to the legal capacity of MRA to institute and maintain the original suit before the lower court.
The commission argued that the defect in the earlier notice of appeal, which resulted in the dismissal of its appeal, arose “solely from an inadvertent misdescription” of its name by its lawyer.
The NBC told the court that the subsisting judgement raises questions on the commission’s statutory powers to regulate broadcasting and enforce compliance with broadcasting standards in Nigeria.
The commission argued that the subsisting judgment is capable of creating uncertainty regarding its regulatory powers if it is allowed to stand.
The NBC also argued that without the pronouncement by the appellate court on the issues raised in the appeal, its regulatory framework would be weakened.
“A weakened regulatory framework may embolden non-compliance with established broadcasting standards, thereby increasing the dissemination of false, misleading and unverified information capable of causing unnecessary public anxiety, panic and social unrest,” the NBC said.
“Absence of effective regulatory oversight may further encourage irresponsible broadcasting practices and the misuse of broadcast and digital media platforms by persons who deliberately publish sensational, inaccurate or inflammatory content to intimidate, harass or unduly influence individuals, institutions and public discourse.”
David Adedeji Adeleke, known professionally as Davido, has shared his past suicidal thoughts as he dropped Oriadé, his sixth studio album yesterday.
Davido
Davido said he chose the date on purpose as it marks exactly 15 years since he began his professional music career.
Oriadé is a Yoruba word combining “Ori,” meaning destiny, and “Adé,” meaning crown.
It translates to “the crowned head.” The album has 13 tracks and features Black Sherif, Aya Nakamura, Leon Thomas, Mayorkun, and Llona.
It follows his 2025 project, 5ive, which reached number two on the Billboard World Albums chart.
Davido also announced an international tour to support the new record.
In the days leading up to the release, Davido gave interviews that revealed personal details about his past and his current life.
Speaking to Vibe Magazine on Thursday, he described a 2014 incident in Ghana that left him feeling suicidal.
He said he invited a woman back to his hotel room after a show, and she later posted a photo of him sleeping online.
He said the fallout overwhelmed him.
“My daddy was calling me. My sisters were calling me. If I saw the balcony that day, I would have jumped,” he said.
He said he was young at the time and did not fully understand the consequences of his actions.
He described the experience as a turning point that changed how he thinks about privacy and fame.
In the same interview, he explained why he often dresses down in public despite his wealth.
He recalled a trip to the South of France where he went out in shorts and slippers without his watch.
“I’ve been on jets, I’ve been flying, I’ve been in all these places since I was a baby. I’ve been seeing money since I was a baby. So all these things don’t really excite me,” he said.
He added that he sometimes prefers to drive a Toyota to the supermarket in Atlanta instead of one of his luxury cars.
In a separate livestream with Davrel, Davido spoke about how his life has changed since marrying his wife, Chioma, and becoming a father.
He said his home no longer holds the large crowds it once did.
“I can no longer have 100 people in my house like before,” he said.
He said he speaks to Chioma every day regardless of his schedule.
He also disclosed that he spends between $200,000 and $300,000 a month on himself, not including costs for his wife, children, jewelry and cars.
He said the amount is lower when he is in the United States, where he described his lifestyle as quieter.
Africa Prudential Plc has reaffirmed its commitment to digital transformation, revenue diversification and sustainable growth after reporting a strong financial performance for the first half of 2026.
Dr Catherine Nwosu
The company made this known during its H1 2026 Investor Call, which brought together institutional investors, shareholders, investment analysts, regulators and other stakeholders to review its financial performance and strategic outlook.
Dr Catherine Nwosu, managing director and Chief Executive Officer of Africa Prudential, said the company’s performance reflected the resilience of its business model and the effectiveness of its long-term growth strategy despite prevailing macroeconomic challenges.
According to the company’s financial results, gross earnings rose by 27 per cent year-on-year to N4.28 billion, from N3.34 billion recorded in the corresponding period of 2025.
Profit before tax increased by 22 per cent to N2.41 billion, while profit after tax grew by 18 per cent to N1.59 billion.
The company also reported a 27 per cent rise in net operating income to N4.21 billion, while total assets increased by 13 per cent to N46.53 billion.
Shareholders’ funds equally rose by 13 per cent to N12.52 billion, reflecting continued financial strength.
Management attributed the performance to sustained growth in its core registrar business, increased corporate action activities in the Nigerian capital market, improved treasury earnings and rising adoption of its technology-driven solutions.
The company said it was steadily transforming from a traditional share registrar into a broader technology and business solutions provider serving Nigeria’s capital market ecosystem.
During the interactive session, investors sought clarification on the sustainability of earnings, particularly as interest rates are expected to moderate.
Responding, Nwosu said the company was deliberately expanding its recurring fee-based revenue streams to reduce dependence on treasury income.
“Interest rates influence our treasury income positively, but that is why we are deliberately diversifying our revenue streams.
“Our strategy is to grow recurring fee-based business lines such as our digital solutions, Know Your Customer (KYC) services, Annual General Meeting (AGM) technology, probate services and the SabiVest mobile app.
“Over time, this will reduce our reliance on interest income and create a more balanced and resilient earnings mix,” she said.
Nwosu noted that increasing capital market activities had created stronger demand for seamless digital investor experiences, improved operational efficiency and enhanced compliance solutions.
She said the company would continue investing in technology-enabled products capable of delivering long-term value to shareholders while strengthening its competitive position.
According to her, Africa Prudential has identified five strategic priorities for the second half of 2026.
The priorities include driving sustainable growth across its core registrar and emerging business lines, accelerating technology-led product innovation, strengthening brand leadership, investing in talent development and deepening corporate governance.
She said the investor engagement demonstrated the company’s commitment to transparency, accountability and regular engagement with shareholders and the investment community.
Africa Prudential reaffirmed its commitment to leveraging innovation, operational excellence and sound financial management to sustain growth and strengthen its leadership position in Nigeria’s capital market.
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