By GARBA MUHAMMAD, Kaduna

A Nigeria-based online news medium, Daily Nigerian, and its publisher, Jaafar Jaafar, have requested a Kano State High Court to order the state governor, Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, to pay N400 million to compensate for wasting their time and attempting to discredit their reputation and integrity.

Ganduje, who took both defendants to court, over video clips allegedly showing the him collecting $5m bribe and gleefully stuffing the money given to him in his pocket, hence claiming damages for defamation, on Tuesday applied to discontinue the suit without giving any cogent reasons.

But counsel forDaily Nigerian, Muhammad Dan’Azumi, told the court that the governor had wasted his client’s precious time and had attempted to damage its reputation by claiming that it published defamatory items. He asked for N300 million in damages.

Similarly, they demanded that the governor apologises to them in any widely circulated national daily in Nigeria.

They equally requested that the court orders Ganduje to furnish them with preaction notice prior to taking any further action on the same matter.

In his ruling, Justice Sulyman. B. Namalam granted Ganduje’s discontinuance application and ordered him to pay cost in the sum of N400,000 each to the two defendants.

(Text excluding headline courtesy, Solacebase)