*Dike
Dike
who is of the School of Engineering & Technology, National
University (Sacramento
Center), Sacramento, California,
accused the two UNIPORT professors of violating his intellectual property
rights.
When
the case came up for mention before Justice L. Akanbi of the Federal High Court
1, Port Harcourt,
on June 12, 2012, both Professors Tamuno and Sorle were absent in court.
Justice Akanbi then gave an order that the defendants be served with notice of
the next hearing date which he fixed for November 6, 2012.
But
on November 6, the defendants still failed to appear in court. Consequently, the plaintiff through his lawful Attorney, Onyinye
Obiaju, moved the court through an ex-parte application for the 2nd
defendant who has been evading service to be served by substituted means to
wit: pasting the court processes at his last known office address.
This application was
granted and the court made an order for the 2nd defendant to be served by
pasting. The court also ordered that both parties be served with hearing notice
for the next adjourned date of 15th of January 2013.
The court equally ordered
that the plaintiff should be ready on the next adjourned date to do his case,
that is, to call all his witnesses.
Dike had dragged Tamuno and Sorle to court (Suit No. FHC/PH/CS/154/2012) for allegedly plagiarizing his work. In the statement of claim signed by his counsel,
E.U. Chinedum Esq., Dike avers that he is the original author of the article: “Corruption in Nigeria: A New Paradigm for
Effective Control” published in the AFRICAN ECONOMIC ANALYSIS, and later republished
in the NIGERIA ECONOMIC SUMMIT
GROUP (NESG) – Economic Indicators (2003)
July-September 2003, Volume 9, No.3 (p.32-45), under a new title, “Corruption in Nigeria: Understanding and
Managing the Challenges.” This article, he claims, was copied verbatim by
the defendants and published as their own work in the JOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT VOLUME 6 NO 1, JUNE, 2008, under the heading, “Corruption and Economic Growth: A Survey of
Three Institutions In Nigeria,” without properly acknowledging him as the
original author.
(universitiesnews)
Although in a letter
entitled “Alleged Case of Plagiarism” dated January 21, 2012, the first
defendant (Steve O. Tamuno) on
behalf of himself and the second defendant (Needorn Richard Sorle) apologized to Dike for copying his work
without properly acknowledging him, the plaintiff was not satisfied with that
apology as the defendants had failed to retract the same article from the
internet as demanded by him. Moreover, the plaintiff avers that his credibility
has been called to serious question as his articles are no longer regarded
highly by readers since their discovery that the very opinions he expressed
have also been rendered verbatim ad
literatim in the work of another person. Due to this incident, he claims,
readers who had held him high esteem before now are beginning to doubt whether
he is indeed the author of articles ascribed to him. This has caused him undue
embarrassment, pain and stress.
So,
he is seeking an order of the court restraining the defendants from citing the
publications as their original work and another order mandating them to retract
immediately the said article from the public and the University of Port Harcourt
website.
He also wants the court
to mandate the defendants to send him a written apology which must also be
published in at least one national newspaper and in addition pay him the sum of
N27 million as damages and the cost of the suit.
Dike is also
in court with the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Sanusi Lamido
Sanusi, for alleged plagiarism. On Monday April 23, 2012, a Federal High Court
in Abuja, gave orders that the CBN governor be served with a writ of summons
filed by Dike
who had alleged that Sanusi had breached his copyright by copying his work
without acknowledging him in two convocation lectures he (Sanusi) delivered at
the Igbinedion University, Okada, and Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University,
Bauchi.
------------------------
------------------------
No comments:
Post a Comment