08/08/2025
NOW THAT VANGUARD HAS PULLED DOWN THE OFFENDING PUBLICATION
Reputation Weaponised - A Personal Account of Smear, Survival, and Vindication:
Over the years, I have maintained a cordial and constructive relationship with the media. It is therefore with particular pain that I recall the day an institution such as Vanguard Newspaper, saw fit to publish unverified and manifestly defamatory material against our erudite legal team, formerly led by the incontrovertible legal iroko of our time, Prof. Mike Ozekhome, SAN. The sting was profound, and the shock beyond simple description.
When Vanguard finally recognised its error and pulled down the offending publication, it confirmed what we had been saying privately all along: the story was false, the sources corrupt, and the harm deliberate. Yet deletion is not the end. It is merely the first necessary act in a process that must include accountability, an inquiry into how such a fabrication passed editorial checks, a sincere apology to those defamed, and internal safeguards to prevent honest journalists from being weaponised by unscrupulous actors.
While I welcomed the removal, the episode offered another revealing glimpse into the depth of desperation and frustration that drives the architects of these schemes. I got a call from the young man they had manipulated into publishing the falsehood, a man now struggling to hold on to his job. What makes his role in this regrettable affair even more painful is that he is a brother from the same state, from whom one might have expected greater caution when dealing with characters so steeped in notoriety, men who have long traded away every vestige of shame for a place in the marketplace of dishonor, importing generational disgrace into their own lineage.
Let me be unambiguous: I harbour no illusions about the scale or persistence of the contrived plots, stretching from my active years in this matter to the present moment, aimed at sabotaging, blackmailing, and even eliminating me. These intrigues are orchestrated by names that would astonish many; names belonging to the very people I once defended at the gravest personal risk. Were Biafrans to see the full evidence I now possess, the revelations would leave many in stunned disbelief. Thankfully, the genuine and indefatigable leadership of this struggle, whose steadfastness has been exceptional, is fully aware of these realities.
What we face is nothing less than a strategic cold war, a lethal contest waged in the shadows. The public outbursts of name-calling, coordinated social-media vitriol, and the occasional defamatory article are merely the surface ripples of deeper, failed manoeuvres designed to achieve sinister ends. Remember that this project has already condemned thousands of innocent Igbo youths to premature graves. May their souls find justice against those who betrayed the cause for which they paid the ultimate price.
Even today, countless Igbo/Biafran youths remain missing, held in undisclosed detention facilities. Many have, in the course of this unlawful captivity, paid the supreme price, their bodies lost and their families denied closure. Worse still, their sacrifice is sometimes dismissed by the architects of these evil manoeuvres against me as “routine” in advancing the cause of liberation. May God deliver them.
Nearly two years ago, we made the conscious and magnanimous decision to step aside, granting the self-styled merchants of fame the opportunity to perform the “miracle” they claimed had eluded us. As a matter of professional discipline, I resolved not to comment on, discuss, or interfere in the conduct of the matter I had managed for nearly a decade; an era of steady, unprecedented landslide victories for our people. I resisted pressure from both Biafrans and the press, determined that when the final chapter is written, the glory or the disgrace would belong to them alone.
Most times, in their calculated bid to tarnish our hard-earned reputation, these smear campaigns are repeatedly orchestrated under the direction of their self-styled unseen hands, with press statements cynically issued under fictitious and non-existent names. The most disgraceful aspect of their antics lies in the fact that their worn-out rhetoric is built upon ridiculous, laughable, shallow arguments and conclusions, bereft of any foundation in procedural law, devoid of the authority of decided cases, and alien to the grundnorm of our legal system. Time and again, these desperadoes recklessly twist both law and fact, standing the truth on its head in a pitiful display of their shallow, and often distorted, understanding of what the law truly says.
But let no one mistake my silence for ignorance. I see clearly the scheming, the envy, the blackmail, and the bullying. I am aware of the instructions once issued to have me eliminated by any means and at any cost. I have read the repeated defamatory tirades, some directed at me, others at my esteemed mentor, Prof. Mike Ozekhome, SAN, all traceable to sources whose identities are well known, and whose unseen patrons cannot remain forever in the shadows.
There are games one simply cannot play with a lawyer of my experience and insight, one who has stood at the very heart of a case for more than a decade. I have often chosen silence, not from ignorance, but because refusing to engage frustrates their designs. These publications are crafted to lure me into a public brawl, to lend legitimacy to their falsehoods. I will not oblige them. But let it be known: any credible media platform that aligns itself with such reckless falsehoods will, in due course, answer for it.
I speak now only to make clear why I will never dignify orchestrated lies and smear campaigns with direct engagement. My gratitude goes to Ezigbo UMUCHINEKE, whose discernment allows them to see beyond the surface and rise unfailingly to each moment’s demand.
Rest assured, I am neither shaken nor discouraged. You, my people, have always been ready to make the clarifications that matter most. Even in my busiest hours, I hold these matters in mind, confident that His grace remains my unfailing shield.
It can only be God.
Ka Chukwu Okike Abiama gozie unu dum ma na-echekwaba anyi nile site ugbu a rue mgbe ebighibi - iseeee, iseeee, iseeee.
Even as we move!
Signed:
Sir Ifeanyi Ejiofor, Esq (KSC)
August 8, 2025
