The Sabon Tasha Police divisional headquarters of the Kaduna State Police Command has filed a charge of “criminal intimidation” against a Kaduna-based hotelier, Mr Victor Balogun, before an Upper Customary Court in Kaduna for allegedly making a threatening telephone call to a journalist, Mr. Ude Gabriel Idibia, over a news report he published online on a raid conducted by the Police on De Jay’s Hotel in Kaduna in June 2025.
Mr. Balogun was arraigned in Court on August 18, 2025, and the hearing was adjourned to October 6, 2025.
According to a Police First Information Report (FIR), signed by Inspector Bulus Alamu, and dated August 12, 2025, 55-year old Mr. Balogun is charged with committing an offence contrary to the Penal Code Law of Kaduna State. The hotelier has, however, denied the charge.
Section 376 of the Law provides that “Whoever threatens another with any injury to his person, reputation or property or to the reputation or property of anyone in whom that person is interested, with intent to cause harm to that person or to cause that person to do anything which he is not legally bound to do or to omit to do any act which he is legally entitled to do as the means of avoiding the execution of such threats, commits criminal intimidation.”
Section 377(a) of the Law states that whoever commits the offence of criminal intimidation shall be punished with imprisonment for a term of not less than two years or with a fine of not less than N50,000 or both.
However, Section 377(b) provides that “if the threat is to cause death or grievous bodily harm or to cause the destruction of any property by fire or to cause an offence punishable with death or with imprisonment for a term which shall extend to Seven Years or to impute unchastity to any woman, shall be punished with imprisonment for a term of not less than Seven Years or with fine of not less than One Hundred Thousand Naira or both.”
Under Section 378 of the Law, anyone who commits the offence of criminal intimidation through anonymous communication or took precautions to conceal the name or residence of the person from whom the threat is coming will be punished with imprisonment for not less than seven years or with a fine of not less than one hundred thousand Naira or both.
The FIR filed against Mr. Balogun states that on June 28, 2025, Mr. Idibia reported at the Sabon Tasha police station and lodged a complaint about receiving a phone call from the hotelier threatening to deal with him over the news report he published.
According to the complaint, Mr. Idibia said he worked on and published a news report on a raid conducted by the Special Joint Task Force of the Police on De Jay’s Hotel in Ungwan Boro area of Kaduna on June 26, 2025.
He said the report titled: “Kaduna: Security Operatives Raid Hotels, Arrest Dozens of Suspects,” was also lifted and re-published by some other news outlets.
Mr. Idibia said he thereafter received the telephone call from Mr. Balogun, the owner of the hotel, threatening that if he did not retract the reports he and the other news outlets published and redeem the image of the hotel, he would see what he would do to him, warning that he could be very dangerous.
