A magistrate court in Kano has adjourned a defamatory suit against WikkiTimes over an investigative story it published five months ago.
Auwal Yusuf Sulaiman, the presiding Chief Magistrate adjourned the case to January 25 following a plea by the defence counsel, Aliyu Yakubu.
Yakubu’s plea came after Habiba Abdullahi Umar, counsel to the complainants argued that the defendants ought to be present in court to hear the charges read against them.
The defence counsel stated that the defendants could not make it to the court “due to an incident they encountered on their way to Kano from Bauchi State. They encountered a barricade supposedly placed by kidnappers which left deep trauma in them.”
He appealed for three weeks of adjournment to enable them to recover from the trauma to be able to have the right frame of mind to appear before the court.
THE LITIGATION
Some contractors have instituted litigation against Haruna Haruna Mohammed, publisher of the Bauchi-based investigative and data journalism medium including his reporter, Elijah Ajoki, for exposing multimillion naira contract scandals in Kano State.
WikkiTimes had published an investigation that named S.A.T Engineering Service Ltd, M. Sulum Nigeria Ltd, Emacs Engineering Consultant, Pyramid Investment, MGK Global Service Ltd and Haitel Nig Ltd as beneficiaries in the building of 20 units of one block of two classrooms with furniture, toilets, and offices in selected locations across the three senatorial zones of Kano State.
The investigation, however, revealed that Nomadic Education Commission alongside the contractors diverted N290 million meant for the projects.
Four months after the report was published, owners of the companies through their counsel, Habiba filed a criminal lawsuit before Magistrate Court 18, Justice AB Wali Complex, Gyadi-Gyadi, Kano State.
They described the publication as “untrue, malicious, unfounded and wicked,” and accused WikkiTimes of cyberstalking and defamation of character pursuant to the provision of Cybercrime (Prohibition and Prevention Etc) Act, 2015 and section 393 of the Penal Code Law of Kano State (Cap 89 Laws of Northern Nigeria.)
