A Kano State High Court has on Tuesday, July 6, 2021 ordered Kano State Governor Abdullahi Umar Ganduje to pay the sum of N800,000 to the Publisher of Daily Nigerian, Ja’afar Ja’afar as cost for expenses incurred in the Court case of the controversial dollar bribery video.
On Tuesday, July 6, 2021, at a Kano State High Court, 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 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 puting the reputation of his clients image in jeopardy) while in the same vein, 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 (Daily Nigerian). The defendant counsel also demanded for an apology to be published in national dailies and a pre-action letter.
In his ruling, Justice Na-mallam however, remained silent on the prayer by defendants to make a public apology in national dailies.
Recall that Governor Abdullahi Umar Ganduje dragged Ja’afar Ja’afar and others to Court 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 after the Publisher, Ja’afar Ja’afar had released a video clip allegedly showing the Governor stuffing his pockets with bundles of dollars suspected to be kickbacks of awarded projects from contractors although the State Government had since denied the videos.
Also, The Kano State House of Assembly had set up a committee to probe the allegations in which the person who gave the bribe money as published in the video agreed to come and testify about the video before the Kano State House of Assembly but the panel stopped the exercise as a result of a Court order asking it to discontinue.
