Magazine Demands Payment Of N5m Debt From Shehu Sani

A Nigerian newsmagazine has demanded from Senator Shehu Sani, who represents Kaduna Central, the redemption of a N5 million advertisement debt owed since March 2018.

TheNEWS in a press statement said it decided to go public after many fruitless efforts to make the Senator to honour his promise as a gentleman, a much acclaimed human rights activist, social critic and a highly respected national legislator.

According to Independent Communications Network, publisher of the magazine, the company explored personal contacts to persuade Sani to pay. He did not.

“TheNEWS wrote a letter dated 29 November 2018, to the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, to intervene. Nothing happened”, the magazine’s editor, Ademola Adegbamigbe said.

As the last resort, the magazine’s lawyer, Barrister Umudjoro, of Umudjoro & Co, wrote a letter to Senator Sani, dated 7 February 2019, threatening legal action over the debt.

“Take notice that we shall not hesitate to seek legal remedies in a court of competent jurisdiction if you refuse/neglect to accede to our client’s demand within two weeks of the receipt of this letter. Pay up and avoid the negative publicity usually associated with litigations of this nature”, Umudjoro wrote the Senator.

The lawyer recalled how Sani, in company of his media aide, Comrade Abubakar Ahmed, walked into the magazine’s office in Ikeja, Lagos last year March and asked for the publication of 10-page advertorial at a cost of N5million.

The publication involved deployment of staff to Kaduna state to report on the Senator’s constituency projects.

“In addition to the publication highlighting the constituency projects, the magazine published an extensive interview you granted to its editors which turned out to be very explosive, nationally and internationally. Need we say, you had full coverage as you had desired and wished for”

“Unfortunately, eleven months down the line, you have neglected or refused to pay the debt of Five Million Naira (N5,000,000.00) accrued from the publication and all efforts made by our clients to persuade you to liquidate the debt, have yielded no fruit”, Umudjoro said.