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The founder of Afe Babalola University, Ado Ekiti, Aare Afe Babalola (SAN), on Thursday, dismissed insinuations that he was using his clout to deal with human rights lawyer, Dele Farotimi, who an Ekiti State Magistrates Court remanded on Wednesday.
This was as a group, Take It Back Movement, convened by the former presidential candidate of the African Action Congress, Omoyele Sowore, has begun mobilisation for protests in Ekiti, Lagos, Abuja and London as the group criticised the police and the judiciary in the handling of the case.
Also, pan-Yoruba sociopolitical organisation, Afenifere, faulted Farotimi’s remand by the magistrate.
The police in Ekiti State had, following a petition written by Babalola, arrested Farotimi in Lagos on Tuesday and arraigned him before the court in Ado Ekiti on Wednesday over allegations bordering on defaming Babalola.
While the police prayed the court to remand Farotimi in a correctional facility, the defence lawyer pleaded for bail for his client, but the Chief Magistrate, Abayomi Adeosun, ordered Farotimi remanded as he adjourned the matter till December 10, 2024.
Afe Babalola’s lawyer, Owoseni Ajayi, in a chat with The PUNCH in Ado Ekiti, waved off the rumoured influence in the matter, saying, “We cannot deal with him against the law.”
“That is not naturally possible, otherwise, we would not have reported him to the police for due process to take place. Immediately he was arrested by the police, he was arraigned in court.”
Ajayi, a former Commissioner for Justice and Attorney-General in Ekiti State, dismissed insinuations that Farotimi was arrested arbitrarily, saying, “The people who are commenting on the matter do not know what he wrote, they are saying he was arbitrarily arrested, but he was not arbitrarily arrested.
“Why is anybody saying influence was being used on him – don’t they want him to defend himself? All the lies that he published in a book and circulated – is that using influence to ask him to defend himself in the law court?
“Are they saying that somebody who was defamed should accept it like that so that people would not accuse him of using influence? There is nothing like using influence or clout here.
“Farotimi is a lawyer, but he was castigating the Supreme Court, describing it as a haven of corruption without any shred of evidence. If he should be dealt with according to the law, is that using influence?
He added, “Are those who are talking about the matter, describing Farotimi as an activist, saying he should be defaming people because he is an activist with the hope of gaining popularity?”
A flyer circulating on social media on Thursday issued by the TIB and tagged “Nationwide/Global Protest Against the Judiciary” called on the public to converge at designated points in Ekiti, Abuja, Lagos and London on December 10, 2024.
The National Coordinator of the Take It Back Movement, Juwon Sanyaolu, on Thursday, said the movement would be staging the action to bring to bear what he described as “impunity of the Nigeria Police and the conspiracy of the judiciary.”
“The Gestapo manner of arrest or what I call abduction of Farotimi from Lagos to Ekiti confirms what we have always condemned about the illegality of some actions of the police. In a situation where private individuals can now hire the police to molest another citizen, we all are not safe.
“The fact that the court also refused to grant the accused an oral bail is concerning. It shows that the state allows selective justice for a privileged few and injustice for the many.
“It is on this note that we will be challenging on the street, the employment of the instruments of the law against not just Farotimi, but also the majority of Nigerians who have been victims of this. All Nigerians of good conscience must join the action to demand accountability in the judiciary,” Sanyaolu told The PUNCH in an interview.
In a post on X on Thursday, Sowore said the mobilisation “is taking serious shape.”
“The Abuja movement on December 10 is taking serious shape. People are to converge as early as 7 AM at the Federal Ministry of Justice, where the office of the Attorney General of the Federation is based.
“We must also occupy the entire Federal High Court Complex and then march on to the Police HQ. We must not forget that every crime against humanity in Nigeria is usually hatched between the @PoliceNG and the Nigerian judiciary,” he wrote, urging people to “please arrive early!”
On Wednesday, Farotimi’s lawyer, Temitope Temokun, while faulting the arrest of Farotimi from Lagos, said the Ekiti command never invited Farotimi as claimed by the police.
Temokun said, “He was invited by Zone 2 (regional headquarters of the police) on two occasions, and he went there.”
“But why would you be inviting somebody to Ekiti from Lagos on something that happened in Lagos? However, he was never invited, and if he had been invited, as a lawyer, I would advise him not to go.”
The lawyer said the fact that Farotimi was taken out of Lagos to Ekiti “is a wrong foundation that nobody can justify.”
“It means that whatever thing they are even going to do tomorrow, it has put a question mark on that process.”
Afenifere kicks
Afenifere, in a statement on Thursday by its Deputy Leader , Oba Oladipo Olaitan and the National Publicity Secretary Deputy Leader , Prince Justice Faloye, faulted Farotimi’s remand by the court.
The group said, “The proceedings at the Ado-Ekiti Magistrates’ Court yesterday (Wednesday ) wherein Dele Farotimi was, despite the application of his counsel, denied bail and ordered to be remanded at the correctional centre for such billable offence of defamation after each of the 16 counts in the charge had been read and to which he respectively pleaded not guilty, only confirmed the fears of well-meaning people all over the world that these processes were driven by extraneous considerations outside the facts and laws of the case.
“This is further buttressed by the fact that the book containing the alleged defamatory statements was authored and published in Lagos where the defendant resides and was abducted and at which airport the petitioner claimed a copy was obtained.
“As contained in the charge the only ridiculous reason for shopping for Ado-Ekiti as the forum of arraignment is that the book titled ‘Nigeria and its Criminal Justice System’ was received and read all over the world including Ado-Ekiti. The only inference that could be drawn from this is that there is no territorial limit for the trial of the alleged offence, which is laughable.
“It is ironical that the judiciary which act is apparently the subject of Farotimi’s book and trial, may by this insensitive indiscretion also be putting itself on trial before the world either for incompetence or apparent undue influence.”
