If I stole something and you call me a thief, I cannot sue you for defamation because I am actually a thief.
If I’m a married man and I get someone who is not my wife pregnant, and you call me an adulterer, I cannot sue you for defamation because what you said is the truth.
If you call me a useless man, an idiot, a wicked man, etc, I still cannot sue you for defamation because you can always say that in your opinion an adulterer is stupid, an idiot and useless. That is your opinion about adulterers.
If I stole a bike, and you say I’m a car thief, I still cannot sue you for defamation because you can say you made an honest mistake by thinking it was a car that i stole. Besides, it will be too embarrassing for me to stand in court and be saying: “I only stole a bike, not a car”.
My grandfather was a judge of the customary court during the colonial era. I discovered that some legal principles advanced by my grandfather were more sound than some of those I learned from the white man. For instance, my grandfather would say: “Obekwa” is not a good enough defence. “Obekwa” translates to “only a little”.
My grandfather would expect the accused person to deny completely. For instance: When they ask the suspect: “Did you touch the missing item?”, he is expected to say no. But if he starts saying “obekwa just a little, I touched it but I kept it back”. That will be an obekwa defense and that is not good enough.
So, any day Yul or Judy tries to sue anybody, they will run into an obekwa situation. That is because there are so many things they will have to explain away. They have to explain how and why they started having s*x, how and why they stopped using protection and started making babies, how and why they started calling themselves husband and wife and why, what happened to Yul’s marriage to May, what happened to Judy’s marriage to Emma Obasi, etc.
There are 100 questions Yul and Judy cannot answer satisfactorily. So, they cannot sue anybody. Trust me on that one. To sue anybody is for them to get ready to answer those questions they would rather avoid answering.
Source: DPA Family Law
