A pro-democracy group, the Take-It-Back Movement, has fixed December 10 for protests in Lagos, Ekiti and the UK over the arrest and detention of Nigerian human rights lawyer and activist, Dele Farotimi, over an alleged defamation of a legal luminary, Afe Babalola.
The Movement which made the declaration on its X handle on Thursday, said it has become imperative for Nigerians to voice out their discontent over the illegal arrest of Farotimi by the police and his subsequent remand in prison by an Ekiti State Magistrate Court over allegations of cybercrime and defamation levelled against him by Babalola.
According to the notice of protest titled: “Nigerians refuse to be SILENCED,” the group said it will hold simultaneously in Lagos at the premises of Afe Babalola Chambers, Abuja Federal Ministry of Justice, Ekiti Police Headquarters, Ado-Ekiti and at the Kings’ College Campus, London, United Kingdom.
The group as well as other human rights bodies have been mounting pressure of the management of the Kings’ College Campus to cancel its Afe Babalola Centre for Transnational Education, named after legal luminary, and return his donation to the institution.
Farotimi was arrested by the police in Lagos following a petition by Babalola claiming that the activist had defamed his character in a book titled Nigeria and its Criminal Justice System.’
After he was arrested and transferred to Ekiti, Farotimi was arranged before the Ekiti State Magistrates’ Court in a charge suit no: MAD/1,476.C/2024, which pitted him against the State Commissioner of Police as the complainant.
Some of the charges had read:
“That you Dele Farotimi ‘m’ sometimes in 2024 authored, published and circulated your book titled: “Nigeria and its Criminal Justice System” which was received and read all over the world including Ado-Ekiti within the Ado-Ekiti Magisterial District wherein you stated at page IX of the book:
“That Aare Afe Babalola corrupted the Supreme Court to procure a fraudulent judgment in the service of his clients which is likely to cause fear and alarm to the public or disturb the public peace knowing or having reason to believe that the Statements is false and thereby committed an offence contrary to and punishable under Section 59(1) of Criminal Code Act.
“That Aare Afe Babalola, Olu Daramola, Olu Faro and the law offices of Afe Babalola & Co, (Emmanuel Chambers) compromised the Supreme Court and the remaining semblance of integrity it might have had when they went back to the Supreme Court and got that Court to swim in the sewer of corruption and shameful self abnegation” which is likely to cause fear and alarm to the public or disturb the public peace knowing or having reason to believe that the Statements is false and thereby committed an offence.”
