Mahdi Shehu demolishes Vision FM station in Kaduna

A self-acclaimed whistle blower and Kaduna-based businessman Mahdi Shehu has given reasons for demolishing Vision FM radio station in Kaduna on Monday.

Vision FM Katsina had earlier reported that Mahdi Shehu led thugs to destroy its station along with some facilities in Kaduna. It said the development forced the radio station to go off air.

But addressing a press conference in Kaduna, Mahdi Shehu said he took the decision to demolish the structure because authority and the law allowed him to do that as the owner of the building housing the radio station.

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He said he had allowed the chairman of the Vision FM radio Umar Faruq Musa to be using the building since 2018 without asking for kobo in return.

“Umar Faruq Musa has gone behind my back and allowed the station in Katsina to be used in tarnishing my reputation, which is against the ethics of the journalism profession. And they have refused me a chance to defend myself,” he said.

Mahdi Shehu added that the chairman of the Vision FM had been acting as if nothing existed between them, which led him to serve him a one-year quit notice, adding that he reduced it to four months after finding out that the facilities in the building won’t be difficult to evacuate.

He said after Musa failed to leave the building at the expiration of the quit notice, he went and remove the roof and the gate of the building, while the Vision FM chairman reported the matter to the police, accusing Mahdi Shehu of trespass into his radio station.

However, all the efforts by the Kaduna State Commissioner of Police to get the two feuding parties to sit failed. Mahdi Shehu said he eventually used the powers vested in him as the owner of the building to by demolishing a part of it, threatening to go further if Umar Faruq Musa refused to move out of the structure.

Dateline Nigeria has been unable to immediately reach the Kaduna State Police Command and the chairman of Vision FM for comment.