.Ambassador Lilian Onoh: “Judge may have imbibed some of Geoffrey Onyeama’s alleged ‘hereditary psychiatric condition.”
Nigeria’s former Ambassador to Namibia and Jamaica, Lilian Onoh, has condemned in strong terms the ruling of Justice Keziah Ogbonnaya, in the defamation suit brought against her by a former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama, describing it as “irrational.”
The condemnation is contained in a strongly-worded petition by Onoh to the Chief Justice of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, obtained by SummitNews.
Recall that Justice Ogbonnaya, had, on June 4, 2025, ruled that Onoh defamed Onyeama by the following sentence, that “The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is only trying to continue its corrupt practices which have brought Nigeria into great disrepute”.
However, Onoh challenged the ruling in her petition to the FCT Chief Justice, stating that Geoffrey Onyeama is not synonymous with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
She said while she would not “deny Justice Keziah Ogbonnya’s right to imbibe some of Geoffrey Onyeama’s hereditary psychiatric condition”, she would not abandon her own “perfectly correct senses” by acknowledging Geoffrey Onyeama as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and neither would she apologise to him in that “incarnation”.
Onoh wondered how the judge also granted Onyeama a gender re-assignment from male to neuter (it) without a medical certificate and furthermore, alleged that the ruling would make it necessary for President Tinubu, NASS, CBN and diplomatic missions to acknowledge Geoffrey Onyeama as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The former envoy said she wrote the petition because the judge was withholding the CTC of her judgment in order to foreclose her from appealing the judgment and she copied several diplomatic missions in hopes that they ban Justice Ogbonnaya from travelling to their countries, including the USA, UK, China and European Union.
Onoh alleged that Justice Keziah Ogbonnaya refused to hear the pre-trial motion challenging Onyeama’s competency to sue as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but that does not explain why the judge would rule that Onyeama is the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
She asked the Chief Judge of the FCT to suspend Justice Ogbonnaya’s ruling and conduct a thorough investigation into what she described as “a clearly absurd but highly dangerous judgment” which she also said would make Nigeria a global laughing stock for many years to come.
ONOH PETITIONS POLICE IG, EMBASSIES, CHIEF JUDGE OVER THREAT TO LIFE
In a related development, Ambassador Lilian Onoh has petitioned the Inspector General of Police (IGP), over alleged threats to her life by the offending judge, Justice Keziah Ogbonnaya, during the defamation case between her and the ex-foreign affairs minister, Geoffrey Onyeama and called for his immediate Arrest.
Onoh also forwarded petitions to the United States of America (USA), the United Kingdom (UK), China, Switzerland and other embassies including the European Union (EU) delegation to impose a travel ban against Justice Ogbonnaya.
The petition was also shared to the Chief Judge of the FCT, National Assembly and the Attorney General of the Federation.
In a widely reported incident, Justice Ogbonnaya had said, “anybody who writes what is not true about me will die”, after Onoh petitioned about alleged bias and abuse of process by the judge.
According to Onoh, the matter was widely reported but no action was taken by the National Judicial Council (NJC) or the Nigeria Police even though it is an offence carrying up to 7 years in prison according to Section 327 of the Nigerian Criminal Code Act.
She also accused the judge of forcing her to pay for the right to defend herself by making her pay millions of Naira for the electronic hearing for her to testify as well as thousands of naira in cash for diesel with no treasury receipt and hundreds of thousands of “arbitrary fines” in court with no receipt, which the ex-envoy described as corruption and abuse of office.
Onoh said she was sharing it with embassies in the hope that they impose a travel ban on Justice Keziah Ogbonnaya, because Nigerian authorities appeared unwilling to take action against the judge.
