SERAP Hits Back at N100m DSS Defamation Ruling, Seeks Stay

A ₦100 million defamation battle has now escalated into a high-stakes test of Nigeria’s civic space, judicial reasoning and the power of state institutions to punish criticism. SERAP’s appeal does more than challenge a damages award. It asks whether a court can rely on defective evidence, stretch identification beyond the ordinary public test, and convert…

Atlantic Post

May 12, 2026

3–5 minutes

Abuja High Court, Civic Space, Court of Appeal, defamation, DSS, SERAP

Abuja’s latest defamation battle has now moved into a fiercer phase, after the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project filed an appeal against the Federal Capital Territory High Court judgment that ordered it to pay ₦100 million in damages to two Department of State Services officials.

SERAP has branded the ruling “a travesty and a miscarriage of justice” and says it has already lodged a stay of execution to halt enforcement while the appeal is heard.

The judgment, delivered on 5 May 2026 by Justice Yusuf Halilu, also directed SERAP to publish public apologies, pay ₦1 million in litigation costs and face 10 per cent annual post-judgment interest until the award is fully paid.

The suit, marked CV/4547/2024, was brought by DSS officials Sarah John and Gabriel Ogundele over posts and publications linked to SERAP’s claim that DSS operatives unlawfully occupied its Abuja office in September 2024.

SERAP says the appeal, filed on 8 May 2026 by Tayo Oyetibo, SAN, attacks the ruling on both legal and evidential grounds.

In its filing, the organisation argues that the decision is “legally defective, procedurally flawed, and unsupported by evidence”, insisting that the court relied on a witness statement that was not sworn before a Commissioner for Oaths and therefore ought to have been discountenanced.

SERAP says that defect went to the heart of the case and materially affected the outcome.

At the centre of SERAP’s challenge is the question of identification. The organisation argues that the lower court wrongly held that the words complained of referred personally to the claimants, even though the publication did not name them, show their photographs, or identify them with any unique marker.

SERAP says the court should have applied the objective test recognised in defamation law, asking how right-thinking members of the public would understand the words, rather than relying on the subjective perceptions of DSS insiders.

The appeal also attacks the way the originating process was amended. SERAP argues that the suit was initially filed against “Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project”, which it describes as a non-juristic person, and that the later substitution with the Incorporated Trustees of SERAP could not cure a fundamentally defective originating process.

In SERAP’s telling, that error stripped the trial court of jurisdiction from the start.

SERAP is also pressing broader defences. It says the publications were substantially true, or at least protected by qualified privilege and fair comment, because they concerned an unannounced security visit that, on its account, raised legitimate public interest concerns.

The group further argues that the claimants failed to prove real harm, such as suspension, disciplinary action, or financial loss, and that no ordinary member of the public testified that the two officials were understood to be the persons referred to in the publications.

In its stay application, SERAP warns that immediate enforcement would do more than extract money. It says the judgment could “severely disrupt” or even shut down its operations, leaving it unable to pay staff, consultants, vendors and partners, and threatening ongoing human rights interventions, investigations and advocacy work.

The organisation says the appeal would be hollow if the award is enforced before the Court of Appeal can pronounce on the merits, because its constitutional right of appeal would be practically strangled by the financial burden.

The DSS has taken pains to frame the dispute differently. In a clarification issued after the judgment, the Service said the case was not an institutional action by the DSS itself but a personal suit brought by the two operatives, who allegedly felt defamed after SERAP accused them of unlawfully invading its Abuja office on 9 September 2024 and harassing staff,

The Service said it had internally investigated the complaint, obtained approval from its Director-General and only then allowed the officers to pursue redress in their individual capacities.

The Service also insisted that it has a duty to protect officers acting lawfully while still sanctioning personnel who break the law or breach internal regulations.

It welcomed the judgment as a remedy for what it called an injustice against its officers, even as it stressed professionalism and adherence to the rule of law.

That position sits in sharp contrast to SERAP’s claim that the ruling chills civic space and punishes public-interest advocacy.

What happens next is now a test of appellate scrutiny as much as of reputational law. The Court of Appeal will have to weigh the threshold issues SERAP has raised on jurisdiction, identification, evidence and the scope of defamation protections, while also considering whether the stay should preserve the status quo until the case is finally determined.

For now, the judgment has become more than a money dispute. It has turned into a direct contest over how far state-linked power, public accountability and civil society speech can collide in Nigeria’s courts.