The Senior Special Assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, has made good his threat to drag the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, to court for accusing him of illegally trading in foreign exchange.
He, however, gave the opposition party 72 hours to withdraw its claim and tender an apology to him.
The PDP, through its Twitter handle @PdpNigeria, had on Saturday accused the presidential spokesman of buying USD800, 000 from the Central Bank of Nigeria at the rate of N185 and selling same off at black market rate of N350.
In an earlier response, Mr. Shehu denied the allegation saying “The day I choose to start trading in FOREX I will resign as a presidential spokesman”.
He also threatened to launch a defamation suit against the “coward and psychopath” behind the @PdpNigeria handle “and I will claim money in millions as damages”.
Having verified that the Twitter handle in question (@PdpNigeria) is the official handle of the PDP, the media aide to the president, through his lawyers, Cherish Solicitors, wrote to the party’s national chairman, Ali Modu Sheriff, asking him to write a letter of apology and a retraction of the publication within 72 hours of the receipt of the letter.
“We shall be left with no option than to have recourse to our client’s rights under the law”, Mr. Shehu’s lawyer said.
The letter signed by Aliyu Abdullahi added: “We condemn your defamatory and libellous actions in the strongest terms and we state that this is least expected from an organization of your standing which produced past and present crops of leaders, expected to be role model in the country”.
