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The Department of State Services (DSS) has filed a five-count terrorism-related charge against Shehu Mahdi, a public affairs and political commentator, before a federal high court in Kaduna state.
The charges border on false publication to cause public alarm, dissemination of terrorism-related false information, intentional dissemination of false information, and use of social media to support false allegations of national security threat.
DSS also obtained an ex parte order to detain the defendant for 60 days for further investigation, in accordance with the Terrorism (Prevention and Prohibition) Act of 2022.
Operatives of the DSS arrested Madhi in Kaduna in December after he posted a video online claiming President Bola Tinubu granted France the approval to set up a military base in northern Nigeria.
The now-deleted post was uploaded on December 14 and accompanied by a video of a Nigerian Army officer speaking Hausa while the background showed a foreign soldier.
Nuhu Ribadu, the national security adviser (NSA), and Mohammed Idris, minister of information and national orientation, have since refuted the claims as “baseless”.
Findings by CableCheck revealed that the claim about French military being deployed in Maiduguri, Borno state capital, to establish a military base in Nigeria is false.
On January 1, Madhi was remanded by a magistrate court in Kaduna state.
A high court later granted him bail on January 9 in the sum of N30 million and two sureties in the like sum.
The court held that the sureties must be renowned Islamic clerics.
