The Management of Zinox Technologies Ltd. has given a seven-day deadline to the publishers of Premium Times, a local online publication to retract a series of defamatory publications against the company and its officials or face a legal action.
Briefing the media in Lagos on the continued fabrication of lies against Zinox with questionable intent, Gideon Ayogu, Head of Corporate Communications disclosed that the Zinox Chairman, Leo Stan Ekeh has never met with Mr. Benjamin Joseph, the Managing Director of Citadel Oracle Concepts and that neither Ekeh or any other official of Zinox has had any form of business transaction with the said company.
According to him, this raises questions on the motive behind Premium Times’ continued campaign of calumny against Ekeh which appears a cheap attempt at extortion.
Challenging Premium Times to publish any proof of transactions between Citadel Oracle Concepts Ltd. and Zinox or proof of any criminal charge against Ekeh, Zinox or any officials of the company in relation to the said stories, Ayogu further disclosed that there is no evidence of an indictment by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), FIRS, the Nigerian Police or any law enforcement agency against Ekeh or Zinox Technologies.
Ayogu stated that Premium Times had enjoyed a holiday-of-sorts in their on-going smear campaign against Ekeh chiefly because Joseph’s prosecution is pending before a competent court of law and as a law-abiding corporate citizen, the Management of Zinox wishes the law to have its course and does not intend to interfere with the course of justice.
Also, Ekeh’s well-known soft spot for the media as a pioneer of digital publishing in West Africa with his first company, Task Systems, which Premium Times seems to have mistaken for weakness.
In his view, Zinox would rather focus on its mission of digital innovation than be distracted by blackmail.
