Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State has sued a former Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission, Chidi Odinkalu; a former aide to former President Goodluck Jonathan on new media, Reno Omokri.
Bibian Anekwe News reports that the Kaduna Governor also filed a libel suit against Thisday newspaper, Daniel Elombah, Elombah Communications, Barrister Joseph Onu, and Auta Nyada.
El-Rufai filed three different suits before the Federal Capital Territory High Court seeking a total of N1.5bn as damages in the suits.
Suit One
The Kaduna governor claimed in one of the suits that statements contained in a certain publication titled, ‘El Rufai’s email saying southern women youth corpers are seen as whores,’ by Omokri, which was published by Thisday Newspaper on Sunday June 14, 2020, was injurious to his reputation.
El-Rufai also noted that the publication was “malicious, unwarranted and defamatory” against him.
He sought N500m compensation and an apology to be published in the newspaper in the suit.
Suit Two
In the suit in which he sued Odinkalu as the defendant, Daniel Elombah and Elombah Communications, the governor said a publication titled, ‘Litany of 25 critics who have suffered at El-Rufai’s hands compiled by Chidi Odinkalu,’ which was published on Elombah.com on Wednesday, September 2, 2020, was “malicious, unlawful and without any justification.”
The governor asked for N500m in damages and an apology.
Suit Three
In this suit, El-Rufai relates to a petition which led to his dis-invitation to the Nigerian Bar Association’s annual general conference earlier in the year.
He said that a letter written by Joseph Onu and dated August 19, 2020, titled, ‘Request to withdraw the offer of platform at the 2020 Annual General Conference of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Malam Nasir El Rufai’ addressed to Prof. Koyinsola Ajayi (SAN), in his capacity as the Chairman, Technical Committee on Conference Planning of the NBA and copied to Dr. Olisa Agbakoba (SAN), as Chairman, Board of Trustee of the NBA and Mr. Olumide Akpata, the then President-Elect of the NBA, and published in the media, was “defamatory and greatly injurious to the reputation of the claimant.”
He also asked the FCT High Court to compel the defendants to grant him apology and pay N500m in damages.
