Governor Bello withdraws defamation suit against blogger

Yahaya Bello, Kogi State governor, has withdrawn the case of defamation he filed against a Bayelsa-born blogger and owner of Naija TV Live, Mr. Saint Onitsha, following the latter’s plea for forgiveness.

The state commissioner for Information, Kingsley Fanwo disclosed this on Wednesday in a statement issued in Lokoja.

The commissioner described governor Bello as media-friendly and would not want anything that may destroy the existing cordial relationship between him and the media.

Mienpamo through his online platform had allegedly accused governor Bello of spending a whopping sum of N7bn on a makeshift COVID-19 isolation centre which was later blown off by wind sometime in 2020.

The said publication generated a lot of controversies which led to the arrest of the blogger by the Department of State Security and his subsequent arraignment at the Federal High Court sitting in Yenagoa.

The commissioner said the suit was withdrawn and struck out by Justice Abimbola Awogboro, Since Miepamo had apologised and pleaded with governor Bello to withdraw the case on realising that his publication lacked facts.

He said, “The governor has decided to forgive Saint Mienpamo for so many reasons. One of the reasons is that he apologised to the governor and he has learnt his lessons from this to always follow the ethics of the profession.

“We are very sure that he is a young journalist that has been doing very well. So, we do believe that it is an error on his part.”