A chief magistrate’s court in Dutse, Jigawa State capital has sentenced a Facebooker Sabi’u Ibrahim Chamo to prison for defaming Governor Muhammadu Badaru Abubakar.
Mr Chamo was first arrested on Christmas eve and detained before he was charged to court for failure to substantiate the allegations he made on Facebook, Daily Nigerian reported
Chamo had alleged that the governor had duped many APC aspirants by collecting their money to give them party tickets.
During the trial, Chamo pleaded guilty to the charge against him and the court sentenced him to six months in prison, with options of payment of N20,000 fine and 20 strokes of cane to serve as deterrent to others.
Dateline Nigeria reports that Chamo had on December 20 apologised for “my writings which was found offensive by some people.
“It is for this reason that I am using this medium to seek for forgiveness from those I offended.”
Chamo is the second citizen to run into trouble with the Jigawa governor over social media post. Zakari Kafin Hausa was in June 2017 arrested and detained for several days for criticizing the governor on social media.
