Fidelia Soriwei, Abuja
The Department of State Services has filed a three-count charge bordering on cybercrime and defamation against Mubarak Abdullahi, also known as Sardaunan Samari, over the circulation of a fake document purportedly written by President Bola Tinubu to the President of the United States.
The charges were filed at the Federal High Court in Kaduna, according to a statement by the President’s Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, on Monday.
Onanuga said Abdullahi was arrested on September 28 for sharing the document on his Facebook page with the caption, “ATIKU IS COMING.”
He added that the suspect admitted to investigators that he had shared the document and apologised for his actions.
According to the presidential aide, the DSS arraigned Abdullahi before Chief Magistrate Court No. 10, Kabala Doki, Kaduna, which ordered his remand at the Nigerian Correctional Centre in Kaduna.
Onanuga said the date for Abdullahi’s formal arraignment on the three-count charge at the Federal High Court had yet to be fixed.
He added that the DSS would continue to demonstrate its “capacity to trace those engaged in circulating misleading information in cyberspace.”
However, human rights activist Omoyele Sowore criticised the arrest, arguing that the authorities were targeting a citizen for sharing a document online.
In a post on X on Tuesday, Sowore wrote, “How low will you go, #OfficialAPCNg and the #officialABAT regime? How on earth do you reduce a national security agency like the #OfficialDSSNG to a mere vacuum cleaner, deployed to sweep up dissenting voices in your inordinate ambition to subdue every citizen simply because you are afraid to face the Nigerian people and account for your disastrous reign?
“Arresting a hapless citizen for posting a document online – sad! Shame on all of you! A day of reckoning is coming, when you too will be held accountable for your actions. That day is coming sooner than you think. Very soon!”
Onanuga described Abdullahi as a supporter of former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar. However, the report said the claim could not be independently verified, while neither Abubakar nor his media aide, Phrank Shaibu, had publicly responded as of the time of publication.
