A Bauchi High Court has adjourned till July 12,2018 for definite hearing, case of a former student of Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University Bauchi, Mustapha Isa, who sued his former lecturer, Dr Idris Abdullahi, seeking N4million for defamation of character.
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that when the case came up on Tuesday, Nasara Joshua, counsel to the defendant, told the court that the principal Defence witness was absent.
He said the witness had travelled to Abuja to obtain a copy of a publication but could not return following the recent crisis in Jos.
The counsel insisted that he needed to go through the said publication to enable him cross examine the plaintiff’s witness.
Joshua therefore urged the court to adjourn the case to a further date to enable him have access to the publication and study its contents.
Mahmoud Abdulkareem, counsel to the plaintiff, had earlier told the court that the sole witness for the plaintiff was in court and that they were ready to proceed.
Abdulkareem, however, did not oppose the request for adjournment, hence Justice Abdulkadir Suleiman, therefore adjourned the case to July 12,2018, for definite hearing.
NAN reports that the former student, now a lecturer with Abubakar Tatari Ali Polytechnic, Bauchi, is seeking for the N4million as damages over an article written by the defendant, an apology, a retraction of the publication as well as a perpetual injunction stopping further publication of an offending article.
In his statement of claim, the plaintiff alleged that the defendant had made reference to his ATBU examination in a publication, accusing him of engaging in examination malpractice while he was a student.
According to him,a committee on examination misconduct set up by the institution has cleared him, hence his graduation from the university.
He is therefore alleging that the defendant’s article is malicious and defamatory, and aimed at ridiculing him.
In his reply contained in his statement of Defence however, the defendant said he never mentioned the name of the plaintiff but insisted that whoever was bearing the registration number he published, was engaged in examination malpractice.
He said: “The registration number of the candidate in question was captured, not to defame his character, but rather to vividly report the case to the Visitor (to ATBU).
“That I am only trying to make. ATBU do the needful about the purported case of exams malpractice, to avoid cheating the weaker ones.”
He therefore described the plaintiff’s claim as “frivolous, vexatious and without merit,” as such should be “dismissed with substantial cost”.
He also sought by way of counter -claim, an award of N1 million as general damages.
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