Court has ordered a newspaper to pay Nasir El-Rufai N10m damages over defamatory article.
Gatekeepers News reports that a high court in Kaduna, North West Nigeria has ordered Today Publishing Company, publishers of The Union newspaper, to pay N10m as damages for defaming the governor of the state, Nasir El-Rufai.
El-Rufai had sued the newspaper for publishing false claims about his assets declaration.
The Union newspaper had on July 2, 2015, published a frontpage story saying that the governor declared assets worth N90bn and 40 mansions.
In the judgment delivered by the presiding judge, Mairo Muhammed, he restrained the defendants from further defaming the governor.
Mohammed also ordered the company to tender a public apology to the governor which must be published in national dailies.
The court held that El-Rufai had shown that the offending material was published to third parties by the defendants.
“The plaintiff had satisfactorily shown that he did not declare assets worth N90bn and 40 mansions, the implication of which is that the words were false and defamatory of the plaintiff,” the judge held.
El-Rufai while reacting to the court’s verdict said the “the freedom to publish is not a license to defame people or clothe rumour-mongering and malice as journalism”.
El-Rufai said he “approached the court and personally testified in the case as a demonstration of his belief in the rule of law, a stance he has taken in securing apologies from other newspapers for libel and which informs his continued pursuit of other instances of defamation in the courts”.
