Human right activist and Professor of Law, Chidi Odinkalu and the Kaduna state governor, Nasir El-Rufai have been on each other’s neck for a long time and the beef between the duo was reignited this week following the protest by the Nigerian Labour Congress over the anti-workers policy of the El-Rufai-led administration.
NLC had during its Monday’s protest and warning strike paralysed academic and economic activities in the state.
Odinkalu, while reacting to the development via his Twitter handle wrote: In Kaduna State today:
Public schools are closed
Filling stations (for petrol) are shut
Public hospitals closed
Govt offices shut
There is no electricity, no water
Kaduna State University has sent its students home
@elrufai is the man with the #rightsize
In Kaduna State today:
Public schools are closed
Filling stations (for petrol) are shut
Public hospitals closed
Govt offices shut
There is no electricity, no water
Kaduna State University has sent its students home@elrufai is the man with the #rightsize pic.twitter.com/ANivcwYXP3
— Chidi Odinkalu (@ChidiOdinkalu) May 17, 2021
But the governor wouldn’t take such a gesture from the former chairman of the Nigerian Human Rights Commission.
El-Rufai in a retweet of Odinkalu’s tweet wrote: KADUNA UPDATE: @ChidiOdinkalu – chartered & certified fake news merchant, false professor & wanted for incitement, injurious falsehood, etc by Kaduna High Court is lying again: (1) all schools (2) most filling stations & (3) public hospitals operating by noon. You are cursed!
KADUNA UPDATE: @ChidiOdinkalu – chartered & certified fake news merchant, false professor & wanted for incitement, injurious falsehood, etc by Kaduna High Court is lying again: (1) all schools (2) most filling stations & (3) public hospitals operating by noon. You are cursed! https://t.co/cxSCWjHi1V
— Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai (@elrufai) May 18, 2021
Issues between the duo date back to 2019 when El-Rufai sued Odinkalu for alleged ” “injurious falsehood” and incitement”
The duo had sparred in February of the same year following a dispute over the number of people killed in an attack in Kajuru, Kaduna State.
Mr El-Rufai had said that about 66 Fulani residents were killed in the mid-February attack but Odinkalu contended that the governor’s claim of 66 deaths was suspicious because there was no immediate corroboration from other sources, especially traditional and religious leaders in the affected communities.
The Kaduna State authorities later filed charges of injurious falsehood and incitement against Mr Odinkalu before a chief magistrate, seeking the activist’s imprisonment, Premium Times reported.
In November 2020, El-Rufai also filed an N2b suit against Odinkalu for alleged character defamation.
In the suit against Odinkalu, Daniel Elombah and Elombah Communications, El Rufai contended that the publication titled, ‘Litany of 25 critics who have suffered at El Rufai’s hands, compiled by Chidi Odinkalu’ and published in Elombah.com on Wednesday, September 2, 2020, was malicious, unlawful and without justification.
He also demanded the sum of N500m for the damage and an apology for the defamation and damage to his reputation.
El Rufai also said the letter written by Joseph Onu on August 19, 2020, and titled: Request To Withdraw The Offer Of Platform At The 2020 Annual General Conference of Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) and addressed to Prof. Koyinsola Ajayi (SAN) as Chairman, Technical Committee on Conference Planning (TCCP) of NBA and copied to Olisa Agbakoba (SAN), Chairman, Board of Trustees and President of the association, Olumide Akpata, as published in the media, was defamatory and injurious to his reputation.
