Kaduna State governor Nasir El-Rufai has vowed to prosecute CEO of Chocolate City, Audu Maikori, for the inciting tweets that led to his arrest on February 18.
Agents of the Department of State Services (DSS) arrested Maikori after claiming five students of College of Education Gidan Waya, Kaduna were killed in the conflict in southern Kaduna on the social media.
Speaking at the Social Media Week in Lagos, el-Rufai said it was irresponsible of Maikori to have posted such information without verification.
According to him: “He is going to be prosecuted. He was arrested. His statement has been taken. His fate will be decided by a judge.
“It’s not Nasir El-Rufai. It’s nothing personal. I have nothing against him. He has worked with the state government in the past.”
He said Maikori’s messages could have sparked off crisis which led to the deaths of some Fulani people.
“Audu Maikori rushed to publish a false story without checking with anyone.
“But before then, he had been posting fake pictures by posting Boko Haram attacks, Rwanda genocide as southern Kaduna killings which elicited a lot of emotions on social media,” El-Rufai said.
The governor went on: “But more than that, what he posted may have led to killings and we are trying to link the dates of the posting to attacks that may have happened the next day on Fulanis and if we are able to establish that causation, as lawyers, we know what it means. It is totally irresponsible to do that.
“And even when pointed out to him that this information is not true that the College of Education does not run a mass communication programme and that the school had been closed down since November, he still posted that he stands by his story.
“He questioned the authenticity of the press statement. He was totally and completely irresponsible.”
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