The Court of Appeal in Abuja is scheduled today, Friday, October 9, to hear an appeal filed by the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project, SERAP, challenging a judgment that awarded ₦100 million in damages to two operatives of the Department of State Services.
The appeal, marked CA/ABJ/CV/1114/2026, challenges the May 5 judgment of the FCT High Court delivered by Justice Halilu Yusuf.
The lower court awarded damages to Sarah John and Gabriel Ogundele, two DSS officers who sued SERAP over publications alleging that operatives of the security service invaded the organisation’s Abuja office.
The court also awarded ₦1 million in costs and ordered SERAP to publish an apology on its website, social-media account, national newspapers and television stations.
SERAP is challenging that decision through counsel led by Tayo Oyetibo, SAN.
The appellate proceedings could raise wider questions about defamation, public-interest advocacy, institutional criticism and the evidential threshold required where individual officers say they were personally defamed by statements directed at a government agency.
At the trial stage, SERAP had argued that the officers were not individually named in the publications.
The claimants maintained that the allegations nevertheless injured their reputations.
The Court of Appeal will now consider whether the lower court’s findings and damages award should stand.
The case is particularly significant for civil society because it sits at the difficult boundary between strong criticism of security institutions and the individual reputational rights of public officers.
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