El-Rufai sues lawyer who ‘caused’ his withdrawal from NBA conference

Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State has dragged to court a lawyer, Joseph Onu, who petitioned the Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, demanding the withdrawal of the governor’s nomination to speak at the NBA’s 2020 Annual General Conference.

Recall that Mr Onu, on August 19, had petitioned the Chairman, NBA Technical Committee on Conference Planning, Prof. Koyinsola Ajayi, SAN, demanding the withdrawal of the offer of the platform given to the governor.

The request was granted and the platform withdrawn from the governor, a development that left the lawyers’ association polarised.

Filing a suit before the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory on Friday, the governor claimed that a letter was defamatory and greatly injurious to his reputation.

He, therefore, demanded an apology and the sum of N500m in damages from the Defendant.

Also, the governor filed defamation suits against a former media aide to ex-President Goodluck Jonathan, Reno Omokri, erstwhile Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission, Prof. Chidi Odinkalu and other activists, demanding an aggregate sum of N1.5billion as damages.
 
According to the suit a copy of which was sighted by Vanguard, Mr El-Rufai claimed that he was severely maligned in different publications that were made by the Defendants.

Other Defendants in the suit he filed through his lawyer, Mr. A.U. Mustapha, SAN, are Daniel Elombah, Elombah Communications, Barrister Joseph Onu and Auta Nyada.

In the case against Mr Omokri, the governor maintained that statements contained in a publication that was authored by the Defendant, titled: “El Rufai’s email saying southern women youth corpers are seen as whores”, which he said was carried by Thisday Newspaper on Sunday, June 14, was injurious to his reputation.

He described the article as “malicious, unwarranted and defamatory”.

The governor demanded the sum of N500million in compensation and an apology to be published in the Newspaper.

Likewise, in the suit against Odinkalu, Elombah and Elombah Communications, El Rufai, told the court that a publication titled: “Litany of 25 critics who have suffered at El Rufai’s hands compiled by Chidi Odinkalu”, which was published in Elombah.com on Wednesday, September 2, was “malicious, unlawful and without any justification.”

He equally demanded the sum of N500m in damages, as well as an apology for the article he said was defamatory and greatly injurious to reputation.

Meanwhile, no date has been fixed for hearing of the suits.