More details have emerged about the arrest and prosecution of Muktar Dahiru, a broadcast journalist with Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN)’s Pyramid FM, Kano.

In a phone interview with FIJ on Monday, a source familiar with the issue said that Dahiru was arrested on the orders of Anas Abba Dala, the senior special adviser to Abba Yusuf, the Kano State Governor, on political awareness.

He explained that Dala had first accused Dahiru of defaming his person through content shared on his Facebook page in January. He added that the journalist had rejected the claim of defamation stating that freedom of speech was a fundamental human right.

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This source told FIJ that the special adviser got a court order that enabled Dahiru’s arrest.

“Dahiru was arrested because of a personal issue of defamation between him and the special adviser. Dala had accused him of slandering his image through content shared on his Facebook page,” the insider source said on Monday.

“After he posted this, Dala reported to the management of the FRCN’s Pyramid FM, asking them to warn the journalist to desist from posting defamatory content against him.

“However, when the management called Dahiru to listen to his side of the story, he said the content he was sharing was on his personal page and they were part of his right to freedom of speech as detailed in the Nigerian Constitution.”

When Dala realised that the management of Pyramid FM failed to stop the journalist from making more posts about him, he sought a way to apprehend Dahiru.

“Dala wanted to arrest him when he realised that the management couldn’t stop him. He went to his residence with the police but found only his wife and kids in the house,” the source said.

“Dahiru on the other hand heard the police were on his trail and ran to Kaduna the following morning. From there, he was transferred to the radio station there. All this happened eight months ago.”

Fast forward to August 26, the source said Dahiru returned to Pyramid FM, and when the complainant saw him a day or two after, he visited the radio station with police officers who were in plain clothes, but the journalist resisted the arrest.

“The special adviser came with two police officers who said they were from Zone 1 Police Zonal Command of the Nigeria Police Force (NPF). They told the journalist that he was being invited by the police,” the source told FIJ.

“Dahiru resisted arrest and immediately called the general manager. He told him they’d been tracking him and wanted to arrest him. The general manager on the other hand called our director in Kaduna.

“But Dala made it clear that his case was with the journalist and not Pyramid FM or the FRCN, and that he wanted to seek redress from the journalist’s defamation of his image.

“However, the manager insisted that the police officers would not arrest Dahiru because they were wearing plain clothes and had no means of identification.”

The source said that Dala returned the following day with uniformed police officers and a court order demanding the journalist’s arrest.

“They came the following day, and after much back and forth, they arrested him and took him to Zone 1 of the NPF. By the next day, they arraigned him in court with charges bordering on defamation,” he explained.

“In some of these contents he shared, he spoke himself, and in others, his interviewees did. In these posts, they made accusations against ex-President Muhammadu Buhari, former governor Rabiu Kwankwaso and the sitting governor.

“However, he had been advised several times to stop posting these contents because he is a civil servant, and it is not appropriate for them to come from him.”

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When FIJ contacted Anas Abba Dala, the Special Adviser, via WhatsApp on Tuesday, he said Dahiru not only insulted him but also extended the insults to his mother.

He stated that Dahiru had called him an illiterate and a fornicator while referring to his mother as a beggar.

“Well, this case between me and Mukhtar (Dahiru) is because he insulted me, called me illiterate and even went further to call my mother a beggar and also a fornicator,” Dala told FIJ.

“He did all these on his personal Facebook account tagged MD. The Governor has nothing to do with this case.”

On Tuesday, Umma Kurawa, the magistrate, granted Dahiru a bail of N1 million alongside an order for him to refrain from sharing contents injurious to the image of the complainant.

Kurawa also mandated the journalist to provide three reliable sureties which include his wife, the Chairman of the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ), and a respectable individual.

The magistrate also adjourned his case until October 2.