A Kaduna magistrate court has remanded a journalist, Luka Binniyat, in custody after he was accused of injurious publication and incitement by Kaduna State Commissioner for Home Affairs and Internal Security, Samuel Aruwan.
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Mr Binniyat had written a report published in an online medium alleging that Mr Aruwan, a Christian, was being used by the state government to cover up a genocide against Christians in the southern part of Kaduna.
The report attributed the comment to Kaduna south senator, Danjuma Laah, made in an interview with the reporter.
At a press conference in Kaduna on Tuesday, Mr Aruwan said he had written a petition urging the security agencies to investigate the reporter over the publication.
The commissioner later on Tuesday further disclosed that the senator, in a response by his lawyers to Mr Aruwan’s letter, had denied granting an interview to Mr Binniyat or making the statement attributed to him in the publication.
Mr Laah later appeared at the headquarters of the Kaduna State Police Command in response to an invitation issued regarding the complaint filed by Mr Aruwan.
Police sources said the senator wrote a statement endorsing the contents of the letter his lawyers wrote to Mr Aruwan’s counsel in which he had denied any link to the allegation published by Mr Binniyat.
Mr Binniyat had reportedly insisted to the police that he was quoting Mr Laah, prompting the police to invite the senator.
Hours after the senator’s statement to the police disassociating him from the report, the security agency on Wednesday arraigned Mr Binniyat before the magistrate, who remanded him in police custody.
Mr Binniyat has been standing trial since 2017 for alleged injurious falsehood and other charges following a story he published while reporting for Vanguard newspaper.
A front-page story published by the newspaper in January 2017 under Mr Binniyat’s byline had claimed that five students of the College of Education, Gidan Waya, had been stopped in transit and murdered by herders.
The reporter claimed to have identified one of the victims, including his home town and course of study.
According to the story, “a relation of one of the victims, Michael Joseph, said his brother, James Joseph, 26, a final year student of Mass Communication in the College of Education, Gidan Waya, had spent the weekend in his native home of Kurmin Musa, Jaba council, Kaduna State, and was returning to school.”
The authorities of the College of Education, Gidan-Waya, later debunked the story, and also pointed out that the college does not offer Mass Communication.
Mr Binniyat claimed that he tried to withdraw the story from publication when he realised that it was fake.
After his exit from Vanguard newspaper, Mr Binniyat was appointed as the spokesperson of SOKAPU, an umbrella group of ethnic associations in southern Kaduna.
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