A court in Kano, Tuesday ordered the State Governor, Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, to pay the sum of N800,000 Journalist Ja’afar Ja’afar and his company, Penlight Media LTD (Publisher of Daily Nigerian), being cost for expenses incurred in a case of video showing the governor accepting bribe.
In 2015, Ja’afar Ja’afar released a video clip, which went viral, allegedly showing the Governor stuffing his pockets with bails of dollars suspected to be kick back of awarded projects from contractors although the state government had since denied the videos.
Gov. Ganduje sued Ja’afar Ja’afar and others for defamation of character and seeking the sum of N3bn as damages, and afterwards filed an application through his counsel, Offiong Offiong dated 28th June, 2021 seeking to discontinue the court case.
At the Tuesday’s court sitting, the defendant counsel, U. Eteng (Counsel to Ja’afar Ja’afar) and M. B. Azumi (Counsel to Penlight Media Limited) did not object to the application to discontinue the case, but demanded that the sum of N400 million as part of terms to discontinue the suit.
While Azumi asked for N300 million for damages (wasting their precious time and putting the reputation of his client’s image in jeopardy), the counsel for Jaafar, U. U. Eteng, demanded for N100 million naira.
The Presiding Judge, Justice Suleiman Na-mallam in his ruling granted the sum of N400,000 each to Ja’afar Ja’afar and his company, Penlight Media Limited (publishers of Daily Nigerian).
The defendant counsel also demanded for an apology to be published in national dailies and a pre-action letter.
In his ruling however, Justice Na-mallam remained silent on the prayer by defendants to make a public apology in national dailies.
