By Abdulgafar Oladimeji
Daily Nigerian, a Nigerian-based online news medium, and its publisher, Jaafar Jaafar, have asked the Kano State High Court to order state governor, Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, to pay N400 million to compensate for wasting their time and attempting to discredit their reputation.
Ganduje, who took both defendants to court, claiming damages for defamation, on Tuesday applied to discontinue the suit without giving any cogent reason.
Recall that Daily Nigerian had published a video showing the governor purportedly taking bribery from a contractor and gleefully stuffing the money given to him in his pocket.
But counsel for Daily Nigerian, Muhammad Dan’Azumi, told the court that the governor had wasted his client’s precious time and had attempted to damage its reputation by claiming that it published defamatory items. He asked for N300 million in damages.
In the same vein, counsel for Jaafar, U. U. Eteng, asked for N100 million naira.
They also demanded that the governor apologises to them in any widely circulated national daily in Nigeria.
They equally requested that the court orders Ganduje to furnish them with preaction notice prior to taking any further action on the same matter.
Justice S. B. Namalam has granted Ganduje’s discontinuance application, and ordered him to pay cost in the sum of N400,000 each to the two defendants.
