News Investigators/ PZacharys Gundu, Vice Chancellor (VC) of University of Mkar in Benue, has disagreed with Gov. Abdullahi Sule of Nasarawa on defamatory allegation the governor levelled against him.
Prof. Gundu, through his counsel, Prof. Sebastine Hon, SAN, expressed his willingness to provide the governor with volumes of evidence to back his statement.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Gov. Sule, through his lawyer, Ahmed Raji, SAN, had, in a letter dated July 22, threatened to sue Prof. Gundu over allegation of fuelling insecurity in Benue.
The governor demanded the retraction of the statement credited to Gundu on a national television within seven days.
He also demanded an unreserved public apology in at least five national dailies within seven days of receipt of the letter.
He threatened a legal action if the VC failed to comply with the request.
Sule had alleged that the damage caused by the statement of the VC was unquantifiable.
However, Gundu, in a letter written by his lawyer and addressed to Raji, said he would not, under any guise, comply with those demands by the governor as “his statements are backed by facts.”
Prof. Gundu, in the certified true copy of the letter dated July 28 and a copy made available to newsmen on Monday in Abuja, stood his ground on his submission.
He said he would specifically be relying on the defence of fair comment and justification, among other evidence available to him.
“The volume of evidence our client has to establish beyond all shadows of doubt that the murderous Fulani herdsmen attacking Benue State on several fronts are always housed in Nasarawa State by successive state Governors of that state, including your client, will shock your client.
“We shall, however, release all of those pieces of evidence when we meet you in court; but remind your client of the following indelible and incontrovertible facts,” the letter written by Hon to Raji read in part.
On the issue of harbouring armed bandits in Nasarawa, the letter read: “Just as our client stated at that public outing, your client’s predecessor, Tanko Al-Makura, once claimed that the bandits operating in and from Nasarawa were hunters,’ when there are no hunting forests or ranges in Nasarawa State.
“To prove further that your client is not free from our client’s accusations, your client told Channels TV in June 2025 after the recent Yelwata massacre that Nasarawa State has only a few Fulani herdsmen; hence the state could not have been harbouring the large number of those murderers who move to Benue to kill, maim and recoil back to Nasarawa.
“This is a sharp contrast to his famed, ‘there is an influx of Fulani herdsmen and Boko Haram members into Nasarawa State.’”
According to Hon, our client’s instruction is that he spoke the truth and nothing but the truth.
NAN