Court bans el-Rufai from destroying Abacha’s hotel

On Tuesday, Kaduna State High Court stopped Governor Nasir El-Rufai and agencies of the state from demolishing and taking over the Durbar Hotel Plc located along the Muhammadu Buhari Way in Kaduna, the state’s capital.

The hotel is stated to belong to the family of the late Head of State, Gen. Sani Abacha.

The hotel has been under litigation between the Federal Government and the family of the late Head of the State since 2001.

The Abacha family was said to have gained the case each at the decrease and the appellate courts. It is now before the Supreme Court.

However, officials of the state, led by the Kaduna State Urban and Property Development Agency, on Wednesday night demolished the hotel

Meanwhile, the restraining order was based totally on an ex parte motion brought before the court docket with the aid of the motel’s management through the attorney to the Abacha family, Mr Reuben Atabor, praying the court docket for an order of intervening time injunction restraining el-Rufai and businesses of the kingdom government from demolishing, taking on, or tampering with the belongings.

The inn management, inside the application, additionally sought an intervening time injunction restraining el-Rufai and businesses of the state government from in addition trespassing at the assets pending the willpower of the movement on notice.

Consequently, Justice Hanatu Balogun of the state excessive court docket, upon hearing the ex parte motion, granted the order.

“I supply an order restraining the defendants from taking over the property in issue and from further tampering with equal or trespassing on identical or developing or assigning identical pending the listening to and backbone of the movement on word,” she said within the order. The case was adjourned till February 4.