Senator Shehu Buba, representing Bauchi South, has strongly refuted viral videos attempting to link him to alleged bandit kingpins, dismissing the footage as recycled and manipulated material designed to tarnish his reputation.
In a detailed public statement, the lawmaker explained that the circulating clips deceptively stitch together two entirely unrelated events—one featuring Hajj returnees from Kaduna who visited his residence in 2023, and another showing different individuals displaying passports—to manufacture a false narrative of criminality.
The controversy stems from an incident in September 2024, when the senator publicly condemned the alleged killing of two charcoal sellers by a militia group.
Buba stated that his intervention triggered a coordinated campaign of political blackmail, leading to fabricated accusations that he sponsored a bandit kingpin through an aide and engaged in criminal associations.
Refusing to engage in a prolonged public war of words, the senator revealed that he responded to the smear campaign by filing a formal defamation suit, designated as CV/413/2024, before the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory.
According to Buba, the malicious campaign also leverages photographs and videos captured by Hassan Husseini, a young orphan whom the senator previously enrolled in private and Islamic schools in Kaduna.
After Buba declined Husseini’s subsequent demands for capital to fund a car dealership instead of continuing his education, the young man allegedly exploited his access to record visitors at the residence.
The senator noted that these materials were weaponized by extortionists, prompting him to petition the police in September 2025.
The legal fallout from the blackmail attempt has already entered the judicial system, with five suspects currently facing trial before Justice Rita Ofili-Ajumogobia of the Federal High Court in Abuja.
The defendants are answering to a multi-count charge sheet that includes criminal conspiracy, cyberstalking, criminal defamation, advance-fee fraud, and extortion, with the next court hearing officially scheduled for September 29, 2026.
Defending his legislative record, the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Livestock and Animal Husbandry emphasized that his past security engagements required community outreach and sensitive interventions that cannot always be made public.
He challenged anyone possessing credible evidence of wrongdoing to approach security agencies, urging journalists, fact-checkers, and the civil society to thoroughly interrogate the court records and origins of the viral clips rather than falling for coordinated propaganda.
