El-Rufai Sues Senator Shehu Sani, THEWILL Publisher, Seeks N500 Million

Kaduna State Governor, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai has instituted a court action against Kaduna Senator, Shehu Sani, lawmaker representing Kaduna central, and Austyn Ogannah, Publisher of THEWILL and President of the Online Publishers Association of Nigeria, OPAN, over a story published in May 2016.

The story, http://thewillnigeria.com/news/el-rufai-will-surely-betray-buhari-like-he-betrayed-obasanjo-shehu-sani/ is a statement from the Senator following a threat to expel him from the All Progressives Congress (APC) by the state chapter.

Shehu, in the statement issued on his behalf by his Special Adviser on Politics and Ideology, Ahmed Suleiman, alleged that El-Rufai still has interest in the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and will soon return to the party insisting that the Governor will eventually betray President Muhammadu Buhari the same way he betrayed former President Olusegun Obasanjo.

“El-Rufai is a bad and rotten egg in the APC. He knelt down for Atiku to become BPE chair and later betrayed him. He knelt down for Obj to become a minister and later betrayed him. He knelt down for Buhari to be governor of which later he will betray him. Fear El-Rufai whenever he kneels down before you,” the statement read.

“El-Rufai was never and is still never a Buhari man but a pretender who can kneel down to anyone as long as that can propel him to power. El-Rufai is a man who had abused PMB and only aligned himself with him when Yar’adua and GEJ denied him juicy ministerial positions and recognition he craved.

“El-Rufai is a man who had spent 13 years of the 16 years of PDP in power and now claims false progressive credentials. The heart, the lungs and the “blockos” of El-Rufai are still PDP. He is an arrogant man allergic to criticism. It’s shameful that the El-Rufai, who claims to be a Buharist, still can’t publicly declare his assets like PMB.”

However, the Governor, who has been having a running battle with Senator Shehu Sani, approached the Kaduna State High Court, Kaduna, in February 2018, seeking an Interlocutory Injunction restraining the defendants from further publishing similar ‘defamatory’ statements against him.

He also asked to be granted the sum of five hundred million Naira (N500,000,000) as damages and a written apology to be published on THEWILL.