BY AMOS TAUNA, KADUNA – The governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Kaduna State, Hon Isa Ashiru has threaten legal actions against a former governorship aspirant in the State, Dr. Muhammad Sani Bello over alleged defamation of character.
Dr. Sani Bello, who recently left the PDP for the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), said he resigned his membership of the PDP because he was not comfortable working with the PDP’s gubernatorial candidate whose credentials are in question.
Bello, who voluntarily withdrew from the governorship contest on September 30, 2018 before the commencement of the governorship primaries of the PDP and threw his support for Hon. Ashiru, had before leaving the PDP said, “There were talks that came up concerning the authenticity of the documents that our candidate presented for the purpose of contesting in the 2019 general elections.”
But concerned by the defamatory statement against his person, Ashiru through his team of lawyers from the chambers of Emmanuel Toro and Co. wrote to Dr. Sani Bello demanding for retraction and public apology.
The letter served on Sani-Bello read in part; “The published defamatory statement has not only defamed the hard-earned reputation and integrity of the gubernatorial candidate, it has also subjected him to public ridicule, scorn, opprobrium, and odium.
“Based on the foregoing, therefore, it is our client’s instruction to demand from you; and we hereby so demand that, you forthwith and in any event within seven (7) clear days commencing from the date of receipt of this letter, retract the defamatory statement and publicly apologize to our client (Hon. Ashiru).
“The retraction and apology shall be published in two (2) offline national dailies, your Facebook wall and page and shall be given wide publicity in like manner as the content of the defamatory statement.
“In addition thereto, you shall pay N500m as compensation for the injury and emotional trauma you caused to our client as a result of the published defamatory statement, given the period that it was made and being circulated.
“In the event of your refusal to comply with, or make good our demands as afore stated, we have our client’s instructions to explore all legal means available under our extant laws to ensure that these demands are met.
“Specifically, but without prejudice to other recourse, we shall file an action in a court of law against you for defamation of our client’s character and claim special aggravated damages.”
Hon Isa Ashiru was elected member, Kaduna State House of Assembly from 1999 to 2007, and from 2007 to 2015 he was elected member House of Representative, representing Makarfi\Kudan federal constituency.
In 2014, he contested the Kaduna State gubernatorial seat under the platform of All Progressive Congress (APC) but lost to Governor Nasir el-Rufai at the governorship primaries.
