‘Miracle Money’: Youtuber regains freedom
A detained Youtuber, Israel Balogun, has regained his freedom from the custody of the Force Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department, Federal Capital Territory Abuja.
It was reported that Balogun was detained on Wednesday after failing to meet his bail conditions.
Before his detention, the 38 year old was interrogated by the personnel of the FCIID over allegations of criminal defamation and cyber stalking of the General Overseer of the Omega Fire Ministries International, Apostle Johnson Suleiman.
Balogun was interrogated for about four hours and later detained with stringent bail conditions.
Balogun’s lawyer, Inibehe Effiong, stated that his client was released after his bail conditions were met, adding that they will be on the lookout to know the next line of action.
Meanwhile, Suleiman’s lawyer, Samuel Amune, alleged that the Ogun State indigene made defamatory remarks about the cleric in a video, adding that under Nigerian laws, calling people unprintable names was cyber bullying/ stalking.
He stated that the police had unfettered powers to investigate it.
“We do not have problems with him expressing his view. It is his fundamental right to do so, but in doing that, it must be done within the confines of the law of the land.
“In the said video, he portrayed our client as a criminal, a magician, a bandit and a fraudster, who connives with some of his secret disciples to defraud members of the public.
“Our client considered the content of the said video as untrue, baseless, misleading and highly defamatory to his person. As a man of God, he instructed our law firm to write to the said Mr. Isreal Balogun to demand that he should recant the content of the video and apologize to our client.
“The content of the video attracted the police as our client complained to them for the criminal defamation of his character. What constitutes an offence is not the true value of what is being said but sometimes the mode and language used in conveying the intention”.
