The police on Monday arraigned Shafi’u Tureta, a media aide to former Sokoto State Governor, Aminu Tambuwal, for allegedly defaming the Sokoto State Governor, Ahmad Aliyu.
Tureta was arraigned before a Chief Magistrate’s Court in Sokoto State.
However, journalists were barred from covering proceedings, allegedly on the order of the Chief Magistrate, Fati Hassan.
The suspect was allegedly accused of spreading unlawful media content and was detained by the police on August 25, 2024, before his first arraignment in court on Monday.
In a First Information Report read by the prosecutor, Abdurahman Mansur, the accused person was charged with circulating injurious falsehood and engraving matter known to be defamatory, the offences that he said contravened penal code law.
According to the FIR, the accused person committed the offences on July 18, 2024, when he circulated the videos of the governor’s wife, Hajia Fatima Aliyu, spreading money on the ground during her birthday ceremony, despite the hunger and hardships faced by citizens.
Tureta was also accused of sharing a document that indicated that the governor failed his Senior Secondary School Examination, as he scored F9 and was not capable of speaking English fluently.
In an interview, the defence counsel, Mr Al’Mustafa Abubakar, told newsmen after the sitting that the accused denied the charges and made an oral application for his bail.
Abubakar said the Chief Magistrate adjourned the ruling on the bail application to September 6, 2024, and remanded the accused person in correctional centre custody.
It was reported that the state chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party has condemned the arrest of Tureta by authorities of the Nigerian Police Force and called for his immediate release.
The party’s spokesman, in a statement signed and made available to newsmen on Sunday night, said, “Our party understands that Tureta was arrested on the orders of the Sokoto State Governor, Ahmed Aliyu, for sharing a viral video clip of the governor struggling to make a statement in English Language and another equally well-circulated clip of cash spray at the governor’s wife’s birthday party.”
“We, first of all, wish to draw the attention of the governor to the fact that the visuals in question must have been recorded by cameramen attached to his own office or his family and initially leaked to the public by the same personnel.”
