THE SUN PUBLISHING LTD CHIDI NNADI V. ALADINMA MEDICARE LTD

OHO JCA (Delivering the Lead Judgment): A number of issues relating to a defamatory publication in a newspaper has cropped up for determination in this appeal. In the issue of the “Daily Sun” of Friday, 1 June 2007, at page 10 in a news item captioned: “corpse disappears from Owerri, reappears in Abia”, it was reported as follows: “The Eagle Squad Division of the Owerri Police Criminal Investigation Department has discovered at a mortuary in Ebem Ohafia in Abia State, the corpse of the late Mr. Allison Elezieanya who died on May 5 in Owerri Imo State. The body of the late Allison was deposited at the Aladinma Mortuary and when his first son, Chimakpa, came back from Lagos, he went to the mortuary to see the body of his father.

But on returning to the mortuary, he discovered he had misplaced the tally number 38 given to him by the mortuary attendants and so alerted them of the sudden miss. And when he eventually saw the tally, he contacted one Ernest, said to be the chief mortuary att…