The Pan-Yoruba socio-political group, Afenifere, on Thursday, said the arrest and subsequent detention of legal practitioner and civil rights activist, Dele Farotimi, at the Ado-Ekiti Magistrate Court on Wednesday, was motivated by extraneous considerations outside the legal practice.
Afenifere, in a statement signed by its Deputy Leader, Oba Oladipo Olaitan, and the
National Publicity Secretary, Prince Justice Faloye, noted that Libel is a bailable offence under the criminal jurisdiction and said it was wrong for the Magistrate Court to have denied Farotimi bail when the case came up for hearing on Wednesday.
The group maintained that it was wrong to have tried the civil rights activist in Ekiti state, instead of Lagos State where the alleged offence was said to have taken place.
The group however, called for the immediate release of Farotimi saying, the human rights activist, should be released on bail and returned to Lagos to face his trial as the alleged offence is a bailable offence, describing the action of the court as an infringement of Farotimi’s constitutionally rights.
Afenifere said “The proceedings at the Ado-Ekiti Magistrate Court yesterday 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 have 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”
“Afenifere considers Aare Afe Babalola an icon with whom we share common views on the restructuring of the Nigerian Federation and true federalism and it will be most unfortunate for his name to be associated by the police with the shenanigans of disrespect for the territorial limits of the powers of the constituent states notwithstanding the flawed Nigerian federalism of unitary policing.
“In this case, Afenifere shares the views as most recently held by the Supreme Court in the case of Aviomoh v Commissioner of Police (2022) 4 NWLR (Pt 1819) 69 that “ Punishing defamation with criminal conviction and pain of imprisonment is excessive and out of proportion to the objective of protecting the reputation damaged by defamation when the civil law provides sufficient remedy to the person aggrieved”.
“Rather than further muddling itself in this case where its obvious descent into the arena by which its constitutional impartiality may have been so impaired to act in persecution rather than in the office of the prosecution, the Police is enjoined to allow the parties sort themselves out in civil courts.
“Farotimi is a legal practitioner of 25 years at the Nigerian Bar. From reports from both sides, this is not the first time he and the Petitioner have had their days in court over libel suits bothering on professional issues the fallout from which may now have only been documented in a book.
“If the Police however feels mandatorily called upon to act, which we find no justification for, let it be seen to assist the courts in ensuring not only that justice is not only served but manifestly done in accordance with the enabling laws and their equally important due process.
“Farotimi is presumed innocent by the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria which also casts the burden of proof of the charges against him on the prosecution.
“The least expectation in the above regards is that Dele Farotimi be forthwith released on bail and returned to Lagos to face his trial.
“The order to remand him for a bailable offence is not justifiable in a democratic society. It is an infringement of his constitutionally guaranteed rights”.
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