Right activist, Mahdi Shehu, reportedly arrested {SEE WHY}
Kaduna-based civil rights activist, Dr Mahdi Shehu, has been arrested by the Department of State Services (DSS) for the circulation of a video about the establishment of a French military base in Nigeria.
It was gathered that DSS operatives arrested Mahdi in Kaduna on Sunday night.
The Service has perfected plans to arraign him on Monday [December 30, 2024] morning.
Mahdi’s alleged offence was the circulation of a video, which was orchestrated, according to security sources, to embarrass the country and instigate crisis.
The video in question contained a false narrative about the establishment of the French military base in Borno State consequent upon the approval of President Bola Tinubu.
Mahdi’s arrest was largely motivated by the false and inflammatory nature of the offensive content of the video.
The DSS, as learnt, went after Mahdi for deliberately going ahead to circulate the offensive video despite swift refutal by the Minister of information Mohammed Idris and the Chief of Defence Staff, General Chris Musa that no foreign country had a military base in Nigeria.
One of the issues that rendered Mahdi’s video tenuous was the footage of a military officer who retired in 2016.
The video was passed off as a 2024 clip of Nigerian military officials at the French military base.
Madhi’s video has now been removed from his social media handles.
But this was after it had reinforced the position of the Nigerien military leader, General Abdourahamane Tchiani that France was set to destabilise his country from the military base operating from Borno State.
That claim was dismissed by Nigeria as unfounded.
Recall that Mahdi has characteristically been creating mischief in the Nigerian polity.
In a February 10, 2024 report by Daily Trust, erstwhile Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), had explained that a whistleblower, apparently referring to Mahdi Shehu, was arrested for attempted extortion.
According to reports, Shehu’s claim through his lawyer, Mohammed Abubakar, that he was arrested in Abuja for calling on President Bola Tinubu to probe former President Muhammadu Buhari and some of his top officials.
A statement from Malami’s firm signed by A.A. Sherif, a lawyer, alleged that Shehu was arrested in Kaduna when he tried to take advantage of his wife, Aisha, for a sum of $500,000.
While Sheriff rejected the activist’s accusations, he disclosed that the suspect was apprehended for charges related to engaging in extortion, criminal intimidation and attempting to deceive a syndicate through the use of GSM numbers and email addresses to acquire money by deceptive means.
“Our attention has been drawn to the above press statement made on February 7, 2024, as well as that of January 2024; and we, as solicitors to Mr Abubakar Malami, SAN, and his family, noted with grave concern that the press statement is not correct, misleading, malicious and a gross misrepresentation of the facts leading to the arrest. Therefore, we write to set the record straight for the benefit of the public. Without prejudice to the police investigation that is ongoing, the facts relate to the complaint/petition which we wrote to the Inspector-General of Police on allegations bothering on extortion, criminal intimidation and an attempt to obtain money by pretence against a syndicate using GSM numbers and email addresses,” the letter reads.
