{"id":168995,"date":"2025-07-10T11:51:33","date_gmt":"2025-07-10T10:51:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/uncategorized\/court-sets-date-for-ruling-on-journalist-cyberbullying-case"},"modified":"2025-07-10T12:54:25","modified_gmt":"2025-07-10T11:54:25","slug":"court-sets-date-for-ruling-on-journalist-cyberbullying-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/court-sets-date-for-ruling-on-journalist-cyberbullying-case","title":{"rendered":"Court Sets Date for Ruling on Journalist Cyberbullying Case"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; Nigeria. <\/strong><\/span>A Makurdi Chief Magistrates\u2019 Court, presided over by Kevin Mbanongun Esq, has fixed August 19, 2025, for ruling on its jurisdiction to adjudicate the offence of cyberstalking preferred against journalist Henry Ibya.<\/p>\n<p>The Commissioner of Police, Benue State Command, has charged Ibya, a correspondent of the Aljazirah newspaper, with publishing injurious falsehood, defamation and cyberbulling. The Director of ICT at Moses Orshio Adasu University, Makurdi, Terna Abuul, reportedly brought the complaint, alleging a false publication against him in the media.<\/p>\n<p>When the case first came up for hearing, Magistrate Mbanongun addressed counsel for both parties and expressed concern over the prosecutor\u2019s inability to complete investigations since April 2025, when the accused was first brought before the court. He acknowledged that the case was not struck out ab initio \u201cbecause of the charge of cyberstalking.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The magistrate accordingly adjourned until August 19, 2025, for ruling on the issue of jurisdiction raised by the prosecution. Defence counsel Tom Uja had earlier argued that the prosecution\u2019s request for more time to finalise investigations was \u201cbad practice,\u201d contending that the complainant\u2019s absence in court demonstrated unseriousness and amounted to a ploy to inflict hardship on his client. MT Testim, standing in for the prosecuting counsel, objected to the court\u2019s power to try the accused on jurisdictional grounds and accused the defence of alleged inconsistency in its submissions.<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Nigeria<\/span> Follow <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Africa-Press<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Nigeria. A Makurdi Chief Magistrates\u2019 Court, presided over by Kevin Mbanongun Esq, has fixed August 19, 2025, for ruling on its jurisdiction to adjudicate the offence of cyberstalking preferred against journalist Henry Ibya. The Commissioner of Police, Benue State Command, has charged Ibya, a correspondent of the Aljazirah newspaper, with publishing injurious falsehood, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":168994,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,14],"tags":[69,1024,254],"class_list":["post-168995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-policy","tag-court","tag-journalist","tag-nigeria"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Court Sets Date for Ruling on Journalist Cyberbullying Case - Nigeria<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A Makurdi Chief Magistrates\u2019 Court, presided over by Kevin Mbanongun Esq, has fixed August 19, 2025, for ruling on its j ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/court-sets-date-for-ruling-on-journalist-cyberbullying-case\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Court Sets Date for Ruling on Journalist Cyberbullying Case\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A Makurdi Chief Magistrates\u2019 Court, presided over by Kevin Mbanongun Esq, has fixed August 19, 2025, for ruling on its j ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/court-sets-date-for-ruling-on-journalist-cyberbullying-case\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Nigeria\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-07-10T10:51:33+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-07-10T11:54:25+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sites\/3\/2025\/07\/sm_1752135957.518146.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"720\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/court-sets-date-for-ruling-on-journalist-cyberbullying-case#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/court-sets-date-for-ruling-on-journalist-cyberbullying-case\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Court Sets Date for Ruling on Journalist Cyberbullying Case\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-07-10T10:51:33+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-07-10T11:54:25+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/court-sets-date-for-ruling-on-journalist-cyberbullying-case\"},\"wordCount\":243,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/court-sets-date-for-ruling-on-journalist-cyberbullying-case#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sites\/3\/2025\/07\/sm_1752135957.518146.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"court\",\"Journalist\",\"Nigeria\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"Policy\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/court-sets-date-for-ruling-on-journalist-cyberbullying-case#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/court-sets-date-for-ruling-on-journalist-cyberbullying-case\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/court-sets-date-for-ruling-on-journalist-cyberbullying-case\",\"name\":\"Court Sets Date for Ruling on Journalist Cyberbullying Case - 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