Our Ref: AO/002/92/700

8th April 2009

The Managing Director,

Vanguard Nigeria Limited,
Vanguard Avenue,
Kirikiri Road, Apapa, Lagos.

Dear Sir,

Re: Libelous Publication against Pointblanknews

We are Solicitors to Pointblanknews.com and Messrs Jackson Ude, Oladimeji Abitogun and Churchilll Umoren, the Owners and Publishers of the online news magazine www.pointblanknews.com and we write this letter on their instructions. They shall hereinafter be referred to as “our clients”.

Our clients have drawn our attention to the publication contained in the Vanguard Newspaper Edition of 24 th February 2009. The publication is captioned “How blackmailers staged ritual murder to dupe Publisher’s wife”. In the said publication a picture of a man in handcuffs was captioned - “Steve Chinua-Ogwu fake journalist, blackmailer, agent of www.pointblanknews.com in handcuffs at the Court yesterday”. The publication also had a sub-heading as follows: “Blackmailer Steve Chinua Ogwu colludes with www.pointblanknews.com to smear publisher”.

In the body of the publication, you printed - “The characters at www.pointblanknews.com not only serialised the false news but their agents made several monetary demands on Mr. Amuka. They resorted to making secret contacts and overtures aimed at luring Mr. Amuka to part with money if he wanted the story killed …..”. The substance of your publication of 24 th February 2009 was also repeated in your 24 th March 2009 edition.

By these publications, you have not only defamed our clients but have also without justification portrayed them as extortionists, blackmailers and common criminals. Your defamatory publications are such that are calculated to lower our clients in the estimation of right thinking men, cause them to be shunned or avoided, expose them to hatred and contempt and have conveyed an imputation injurious to them in their professional calling or business and in their private lives.

You are hereby requested to issue a retraction of the defamatory publication within 7 days of the receipt of this letter. Such retraction is to be given same prominence as the defamatory publication. In addition, our clients request for the sum of =N=5 billion as damages for defamation of character and libel.

Take notice that unless the above is done within the specified 7 days, we shall have no choice but to perfect our instruction by instituting legal proceeding against your organisation for defamation of character and libel.

You are warned!

Yours truly,

Ayodele, Olugbenga & Co.