{"id":77847,"date":"2025-11-01T12:57:19","date_gmt":"2025-11-01T12:57:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/?p=77847"},"modified":"2025-11-01T12:57:19","modified_gmt":"2025-11-01T12:57:19","slug":"court-grants-bail-to-journalist-arrested-over-gwagwalada-project-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/2025\/11\/01\/court-grants-bail-to-journalist-arrested-over-gwagwalada-project-report\/","title":{"rendered":"Court Grants Bail to Journalist Arrested Over Gwagwalada Project Report"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Huldah Shado<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>An Abuja Magistrate Court in Gwagwalada has granted bail to journalist and activist Manasseh Bem Paul in the sum of \u20a63 million with two sureties in like sum.<\/p>\n<p>Manasseh, of Chronicles Reporters, was arrested on Thursday after APGA chairmanship candidate Ezekiel Zezelaga allegedly led armed policemen to his home.<\/p>\n<p>He was accused of criminal defamation following reports linking Zezelaga and Gwagwalada Council Chairman Abubakar Jibrin Giri to alleged corrupt practices.<\/p>\n<p>The journalist\u2019s supporters described the charges as politically motivated and an attempt to silence him for exposing corruption in the council.<\/p>\n<p>His lawyer, Barrister Grace, argued that the offence was bailable, prompting the court to grant bail with strict conditions, including sureties who must be a Level 14 civil servant and a businessperson.<\/p>\n<p>Though he met the conditions, his release was delayed as the Magistrate closed for the day. The case was adjourned to December 1, 2025, for hearing.<\/p>\n<p>Manasseh is known in Gwagwalada for his advocacy on transparency and good governance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Huldah Shado &nbsp; An Abuja Magistrate Court in Gwagwalada has granted bail to journalist and activist Manasseh Bem Paul in the sum of \u20a63 million with two sureties in like sum. Manasseh, of Chronicles Reporters, was arrested on Thursday after APGA chairmanship candidate Ezekiel Zezelaga allegedly led armed policemen to his home. He was [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":77848,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1386,172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-77847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-judiciary","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77847"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77847\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77849,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77847\/revisions\/77849"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}