Chocolate City Group founder, Audu Maikori, was on Monday granted bail by a Kaduna magistrate court on “very liberal terms”, his lawyer and associate, John Danfulani, has confirmed.
Maikori faces allegations of incitement to violence initiated by the Kaduna State Government over inaccurate tweets he posted in which he alleged assassination of some college students in Southern Kaduna.
He was arrested last week Friday and held at a police facility in Kaduna, although the police have denied being responsible for his incarceration.
The entertainment mogul was taken to court by police officers and the Director of Public Prosecution in Kaduna State, Dari Bayero, Danfulani said.
Danfulani said his client was granted bail after being charged for the first time on Monday, under the controversial Cybercrime Act.
The government “charged him under Section 24 of Cybercrime Act. He will appear before the Chief Magistrate,” the lawyer told PREMIUM TIMES by telephone Monday afternoon.
The court adjourned further hearing on the matter until May 24.
Maikori has been critical of the Kaduna State Government’s response to a wave of killings in the state in recent months.
On January 23, he posted a series of tweets about an incident in which the brother of his driver and five students were allegedly killed by Fulani herdsmen.
He later retracted the statement, claiming that his driver had lied to him about the incident and that he had handed the driver over to police.
Police last month briefly arrested Maikori over the post, but he was released after a short period in custody.
Governor Nasir el-Rufai, earlier this month pledged to prosecute Maikori for allegedly disseminating false information.
“Audu Maikori rushed to publish a false story without checking with anyone,” el-Rufai said at a social media summit in Lagos.
The governor also accused Maikori of posting images from attacks by Nigerian militant group Boko Haram and photographs of victims of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda while claiming that the images depicted victims of killings in southern Kaduna.
Maikori is the latest Nigerian social media user to be detained under the Cyber Crime Act, which was signed by former President Goodluck Jonathan in 2015.
