Thursday, 20 June 2013

Publisher Dares Abuja Minister Over Corruption Claims

Tukur Mamu

The publisher of Kaduna-based Desert Herald Newspaper, Tukur Mamu, has dared the Minister of the FCT, Bala Mohammed to carry out his threat of suing him over the contents of a yet to be published book titled “FCT Administration: The Rot Within”.
Mr. Mamu, who was responding to a notice sent to him by Mr. Mohammed’s lawyer, Kyari Gadzama, SAN, asking Mr. Mamu to retract and apologize or face legal action, said “we stand by our earlier publication that Sen. Bala Muhammad, Ibrahim Bomoi and other FCT officials and appointees that featured prominently in the book are corrupt and we will not offer any public apology or a retraction”.
“We are ready to defend our claim of corruption against the two public office holders whenever they decided to go to court,” he said in a statement on Wednesday.
Mr. Mohammed and the FCT director of treasury, Ibrahim Bomoi, had threatened to sue Mr. Mamu for five and two billion naira respectively as damages, for what they described as “series of damaging publications through DESERT HERALD and other national dailies”.
In his statement on Wednesday, Mr. Mamu also alleged that the FCT Minister had written to the Inspector General of Police to arrest and prosecute him for allegedly demanding N15 million bribe through one Nosike Ogbuenyi.
Mr. Mamu said it is the Minister and his officials that are supposed to apologize to him.
“It is indeed the Minister and his Director of Treasury that are supposed to tender their retraction and apology to Tukur Mamu for their multiple contradictions of claims of blackmail and extortion of N50m, N15m & N10m in the series of advertorials and articles they sponsored,” he said.

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