Barely a week after his appointment as chief spokesman for President Goodluck Jonathan, Reuben Abati is having his first taste of political and legal heat. Muhammadu Buhari, former military head of state and presidential candidate for Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), has threatened to drag Mr. Abati, until recently a columnist as well as chairman of the editorial board of the Guardian, to court for an alleged libel.
Barely a week after his appointment as chief spokesman for President Goodluck Jonathan, Reuben Abati is having his first taste of political and legal heat. Muhammadu Buhari, former military head of state and presidential candidate for Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), has threatened to drag Mr. Abati, until recently a columnist as well as chairman of the editorial board of the Guardian, to court for an alleged libel.
Mr. Buhari is miffed over a column Mr. Abati penned alleging that Mr. Buhari's campaign slogans were the cause of the post-election violence after the April 2011 presidential polls.
In a letter sent to Abati by Tope Adebayo, Mr. Buhari gave the new presidential aide one week to retract the libelous column or face a libel suit.
In a statement that accompanied the letter, Buhari's spokesperson, Mr. Yinka Odumakin, said that all those who peddled falsehood against the former head of state must pay for their actions, adding that Mr. Abati is one of such individuals.
Prior to Mr. Abati’s appointment as presidential spokesman to Mr. Goodluck Jonathan, he wrote a series of columns in the Guardian that were apparently in preparation for his recent appointment. It was in one of the pro-Jonathan columns that he made the allegations against Mr. Buhari.
A copy of the letter to Mr. Abati is reproduced below:
