In what might be called a shocking turn-around, Innoson Motors has retracted its recent declaration of victory in a court case which seemed to go against Guaranty Trust Bank (GTBank).

This walk back came in form of a statement released recently on social media, where an initial tweet stating that the Supreme Court had ordered GTBank to pay the chairman of Innoson Motors, Dr. Innocent Chukwuma, 14 billion naira within 14 days was deleted – a statement that caused a social media storm among customers of the bank and other Nigerians.

In the statement released by Innoson on Twitter, the spokesman claimed that “there have been a lot of misinterpretations about the press release published by Innoson Group on the decision of the Supreme Court. The caption was a slight distortion of the information. When the information came to our notice, we had to correct the error made by the staff of the agency managing our social media accounts. We apologise for that misleading information”.

Records of the court proceedings also showed there was no such ruling. Instead, the Supreme Court had directed both parties, Innoson and GTBank, to return to the Court of Appeal, Enugu Judicial Division, for a hearing on GTBank’s appeal scheduled for tomorrow, June 14, 2018.

As facts became clearer to the public, the embattled businessman silently deleted the false tweet from the company’s Twitter account.

GTBank had also advised the public that Innoson’s claims were “false, mischievous and malicious”, emphasizing that there was no directive or order issued by the Supreme Court of Nigeria to the Bank to make any payment to any of its debtor customers, calling for Nigerians to disregard the statement in its entirety.

Temidayo Taiwo-Sidiq

Temidayo Taiwo-Sidiq is a Journalist, Political Analyst and Satirist with major interest in Nigerian Politics, Governance and Sports.