Femi Otedola to sue Reps for defamation

The House of Representative might be facing a trillion naira lawsuit for defamation of character after its plenary session on Friday adopted a resolution to re-enlist Femi Otedola's Zenon Oil and Gas Ltd and Synopsis Enterprise Ltd on the list of companies

that had corruptly enriched selves through fraudulent subsidy payments, Huhuonline.com has learnt from sources close to the business magnate.

The House of Reps suspended the Chairman, Adhoc Committee on Oil   Subsidy Probe, Farouk Lawan,   and referred his case to the its Ethics Committee. Lawan, a ranking legislator since 1999 and member of the   ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), was accused of receiving $620,000 gratification from oil magnate, Femi Otedola, to expunge his company, Zenon Oil and Gas Ltd, from the list of oil marketers involved in fraudulent gasoline imports that led to the theft of $6.7 billion

But Femi Otedola has threatened court action saying the House reps dragged his reputation into disrepute by involving him in a sector which is not even his line of business. Chief Femi Otedola, a major player in the bribery saga over the probe into the management of oil subsidy, is also angry at insinuations by some House members that he framed Lawan and that he (Otedola) is just as guilty.

Otedola believes the failure of the police and the State Security Service (SSS) to make public the video recording he gave them is causing him a lot of damage. Huhuonline.com has learnt that Otedola has approached a lawyer to seek an order compelling the SSS to publish the audio and video recording to show who did what and when.

Otedola has said he wants the case handled on merit and not on sentiments and he is prepared to confront Farouk Lawan in court. The move came as the House of Representatives re-instated Otedola's company, Zenon Oil and Gas to be investigated by security and anti-graft agencies as one of the companies that collected foreign exchange (Forex) from the Central Bank of Nigeria to import fuel but failed to do so.