Some indigenes of the six states in the North East zone have petitioned the inspector-general of police (IGP) over alleged malicious libel and criminal defamation against Vice President Kashim Shettima and the managing director of the North East Development Commission (NEDC) Mohammed Alkali.
They wrote the petition through a legal practitioner, Mr Peter Aki.
In the petition dated June 4, 2024, which was received by the Office of the Inspector General of Police on June 10, 2024, the stakeholders under the aegis of Concerned Citizens of Six North East States claimed that the publications on various national dailies were false and meant to disparage the vice president and the managing director in the eyes of right-thinking persons.
They said the deeds were contrary to Nigerian Criminal and Penal Code laws and a gross violation of their right to dignity of human persons as guaranteed under the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended).
The petitioners from Adamawa, Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, Taraba, and Yobe described the “defamatory reports” as a calculated attempt to ignite political instability in the sub-region.
The co-signatories are Barrister Atiku Isma’ila from Gombe, Alhaji Lawan Abdullahi (Bauchi), Mallam Murtala Danejo (Taraba), Aliyu Mohammed (Yobe), Engr Awwal Hayatu Wakili (Adamawa), and Abubakar Hussaini from Borno.
They asserted that the publications could cause the breakdown of law and order in their states and the zone.
The petitioners, therefore, asked the IGP to use his office to investigate the petition and take necessary action as conferred on his office by law.
The copies of the petition were distributed to journalists in Bauchi yesterday.
It was titled, “Petition Against Some Malicious, Libellous Publications Against the Person and Office of the Vice President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and the Managing Director of The North East Development Commission Designed to Ignite Political Instability Across the Nation.”
They told the IGP that “If there is anything to go by, it is the said pastor and reverend working in collaboration with some few professional mischief makers who have assigned unto themselves the obligation to malign and destroy both the person and Office of the Vice President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria Kashim Shettima and the Managing Director of the North East Development Commission Mohammed Goni Alkali for reasons best known to them but which we have reason to believe are just politically motivated.
“The publication is not only false, malicious, and destructive, but it is a deliberate attempt to malign the person of the number two man in the country, expose him and his family to ridicule, and needlessly incite public hatred against his person and his family. This false information is criminal defamation capable of provoking the numerous supporters of Kashim Shettima not only in Borno, North Eastern State, in particular, but Nigeria as a whole,” they said.
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