The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has urged the Court of Appeal sitting in Abuja to set aside a N100 million defamation judgment entered against it in favour of two officers of the Department of State Services (DSS).

The appeal is scheduled for hearing on Friday and challenges the judgment delivered by Justice Yusuf Halilu of the Federal Capital Territory High Court on May 5, 2026.

In its Appellant’s Brief of Argument dated September 3, 2026 and filed by its counsel, Tayo Oyetibo, SAN, SERAP raised 24 grounds of appeal challenging the finding of liability, award of damages and consequential orders, including an order directing the organisation to publish an apology.

SERAP, in a release signed it’s Deputy Director, Kolawole Oluwadare faulted the trial court for relying on its own observation of the physical appearance of the respondents in court to establish identification.

SERAP argued that the relevant question was whether the publications identified the officers when they were published, rather than whether they happened to fit the descriptions when they appeared.

The group further maintained that officers of public security agencies are not immune from legitimate criticism concerning the performance of public functions and called on the appellate court to uphold due process and constitutional protection of freedom of expression.

SERAP said: “The central issue in this appeal is whether the respondents established by credible evidence that the publications complained of referred to them. The publications did not name the respondents, and the descriptions relied upon were general physical descriptions which did not, without more, identify the particular individuals who brought the action.

SERAP’s Brief of Argument reads in part: “The alleged suspension of the 1st and 2nd Respondents was likewise not supported by independent documentary evidence. The award against SERAP was therefore not only excessive but also arbitrary and ought to be set aside.

“The learned trial Judge relied, inter alia, on assertions that the publication had affected the 1st and 2nd Respondents ‘mentally and psychologically’ and had ‘gone viral’, without sufficient evidence establishing the extent of the publication or any specific professional, financial or reputational injury suffered by the Respondents.

“The award of liability cannot stand where the essential findings on falsity and justification were not supported by the evidence We respectfully submit that the finding of liability and consequential award of damages cannot stand once the findings upon which they were founded are shown to be erroneous.

“Where a claimant is not expressly named in a publication, the burden remains on the claimant to establish by evidence the circumstances from which a reasonable reader would understand the publication to refer specifically to that claimant. That essential link was not established in this case.

“Neither publication identified the respondents by name, rank, designation, office or photograph. The descriptions relied upon were physical descriptions which, on the evidence before the trial Court, were not unique to the respondents.

“The respondents pleaded that members of the public and persons within the SSS understood the publications to refer to them, but no member of the public was called to testify that they had read the publications and understood them to refer to the respondents.

“No independent witness was called to establish the alleged identification, while the social-media reactions relied upon by the respondents were not tendered in evidence.

“The law is settled that the words complained of in an action for defamation must be considered from the standpoint of the ordinary reasonable reader. The question is whether a reasonable person reading the publication would associate the words complained of with the claimant.”

“The significance of this principle in the present appeal is considerable. The two SSS/DSS officers were not named in either publication. Their case therefore depended upon establishing by evidence the factual circumstances connecting the descriptions contained in the publications to their particular identities.

“The trial Court consequently supplied the missing identifying link by relying, among other things, on its own observation of the physical appearance of the respondents in Court.

“The trial Court could not properly supply by its own observation the essential identifying link which the respondents were required to establish by evidence. The issue was whether the publications identified the respondents when they were published, not whether the respondents happened to fit the descriptions when they appeared before the Court.” he said.