A Kaduna state High Court has adjourned defamation suit instituted by the Governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), in Kaduna State, Hon. Mohammed Isah Ashiru, against Prof. Mohammed Bello, the campaign Director General of the All Progressives Congress (APC) gubernatorial candidate in the state.
The Court presided over by Justice Edward Andow adjourned the case to November 15, 2022 for exchange of briefs.
Ashiru sued Prof. Bello, a former PDP gubernatorial aspirant in Kaduna State and later defected to the APC, at the Kaduna state High Court demanding N100 million damages for defamation.
Bello was alleged to have said during an interview that the GCE certificate presented by Hon. Ashiru, the PDP candidate to enable him contest the governorship election does not belong to him, saying that Ashiru does not have a certificate.
Ashiru said that the allegation of forgery against him by Prof. Bello was false and malicious with intent to lower his acceptability among the electorates of Kaduna state. The governorship candidate also said that Prof. Bello deliberately made the statements maliciously in order to advance his relevance and acceptance in his new political party (APC), while affecting his (Ashiru’s) reputation negatively thereby diminishing his chances of becoming the Governor of Kaduna state.
Ashiru through his Counsel is therefore seeking N100 million as damages he suffered as a result of an interview granted by Bello accusing him of forgery and presenting a false certificate to INEC.
He said that Bello at a press conference and also during an interview with the BBC, Hausa Service made disparaging allegations to the effect that his GCE O’level certificate is forged.
The PDP governorship candidate said that the said words were defamatory in their plain and ordinary meanings and had therefore thoroughly disparaged his reputation as a candidate and an upright and responsible citizen who has built his good name overtime.
Ashiru thereby presented the court copies of a 1980 GCE O’level certificate, diplomas from the Hassan Usman Katsina Polytechnic, Kaduna Polytechnic and a Masters Degree in Public Policy and Administration from the Bayero University, Kano among several certificates.
He therefore urged the court, that apart from compelling the defendant to pay damages of N100 million, to issue further orders compelling him to retract his defamatory/libelous statement by publishing retractions in the social, print and electronic media and a perpetual injunction from further defamatory utterances was required.
Prof. Bello, who was represented by Auta Maisamari Esq, pleaded justification and fair comment, insisting that the plaintiff was not entitled to any damages for statements that were true and factual.
He insisted that Ashiru not only presented false school certificate to INEC, but also lied severally in the INEC form CFOO1 in almost all the answers he provided to questions asked and deposed to an oath purporting the said false answers to be true.
Bello said that the 1980 GCE claimed by the plaintiff displays the name of Mohammed Ashiru different from all other certificates which display Isah Mohammed Ashiru or several other variations which are not and cannot be said to be the same with the name displayed in GCE O’Level that he submitted to INEC as his own.
He said the plaintiff presented no evidence to INEC or in the documents pleaded before the court that he was indeed the same person in the subsequent certificates and in the forms submitted to INEC which shows different variations of the names Isah Mohammed Ashiru or Ashiru Mohammed Isah or Mohammed Isah Ashiru or Isa Mohammed Ashiru or Isa M Ashiru or Isa Ashiru.
He maintained that in the absence of an affidavit or any other evidence to draw a nexus between these names, the court must hold that the PDP candidate Isah Mohammed Ashiru cannot be said to be the same person referred to as Mohammed Ashiru captured in the 1980 GCE O’Level presented to INEC and therefore an assertion that he has no certificate and cannot be defamed.
