Are the guilty afraid?, By Jibrin Ibrahim

The Police ought to drop the costs in opposition to Mr Farotimi and he ought to be instantly launched with out preconditions. The Legal professional Common of Ekiti State ought to step in instantly to formally discontinue the case in opposition to Mr Farotimi if the police don’t act quick sufficient in doing so. All legal guidelines that help prison defamation in Nigeria’s prison jurisprudence ought to be instantly repealed and instances initiated underneath these legal guidelines ought to be struck out by the courts.

There seems to be panic and deep ache in Afe Babalola’s actions for the reason that publication and gross sales of the brand new worldwide bestseller, Dele Farotimi’s e-book, Nigeria and its Prison Justice System. It turned a bestseller exactly as a result of the omnipotent Mr Babalola is decided to cease Nigerians and the worldwide neighborhood from studying it. Apparently, nobody has defined to him that one of the best ways to get all people to learn a e-book is to inform them that they need to not learn it. Mr Babalola has nonetheless endured in his errors by getting a court docket to restrain Dele Farotimi Publishers, in addition to bookshops, from circulating and promoting the e-book. MA Adegbola, the presiding choose, restrained the defendants and their republishers, together with Amazon On-line Bookstore, Rovingheights Bookstore, Booksellers Bookstore, Jazzhole Lagos Bookstore, Glendora Bookshop, Quintessence Lagos Bookstore, and Patabah Books Restricted, from additional publishing and promoting the e-book. Deep panic.

Final week, the Ekiti police command, appearing on behalf of Mr Babalola, had arrested Farotimi over alleged defamation and cyberbullying. The activist was accused of spreading false data in opposition to Babalola. That was not sufficient, subsequently the inspector-general of Police filed a 12-count cost bordering on cybercrime in opposition to Farotimi. The ruling on the e-book adopted an software by Kehinde Ogunwumiju, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria and managing companion at Afe Babalola & Co. looking for N500 million in damages from Mr Farotimi for allegedly defaming him within the e-book. The mentioned e-book, Nigeria and its Prison Justice System, is an unfiltered, freewheeling vital account of Mr Farotimi about some high Nigerian authorized corporations and the Nigerian judiciary.

A lot of my readers will marvel how some high attorneys can pursue routes to futility with such willpower. The  e-book gained large traction, reaching a high spot on Amazon’s bestseller listing inside days of cascading police actions in opposition to Mr Farotimi, following Mr Babalola’s petition final week. PDF copies of the e-book, which was launched in July, have circulated broadly within the final one week because of the free publicity provided by Mr Babalola. Now all the Nigerian Police Pressure is likely to be positioned in streets all around the nation on a “search and conceal the e-book” mission. Goodluck Mr Babalola.

In the meantime, all that the 104-page e-book did was to analysis what led to the accusation that the legislation agency was responsible of “compromising the integrity of the Supreme Courtroom,” scheming with “crooked attorneys and incompetent justices,” and “doctoring” a Supreme Courtroom judgement. It additionally accused Mr Babalola of corrupting the Supreme Courtroom within the service of his purchasers. The issue is that the majority Nigerians would think about such accusations to be almost definitely TRUE.

There are numerous troubling elements of Mr Fatotimi’s encounter with Nigerian legislation enforcement, starting with the unnecessarily aggressive and confrontational method during which his arrest was affected. The CCTV footage launched by his workplace after his arrest revealed the totally unprofessional and violent nature of the cops who travelled out of the state of their posting to arrest him. The officers weren’t wearing uniform and will have handed as armed thugs.

The response of Mr Babalola, the police, and the judiciary has been excessive punishment for Farotimi for daring to inform his story. It is for that reason that civil society organisations strongly condemn the arrest, detention, persecution and torture of Mr Dele Farotimi. The style of his arrest was an aberration and Mr Farotimi ought to by no means have been subjected to the prison justice course of on this case. As well as, the prohibitive phrases of bail for what is meant to be a misdemeanour raises the true chance that Mr Farotimi’s proper to be tried – as required by Nigeria’s structure – by a court docket “constituted in such a way as to ensure its independence and impartiality” has been compromised.

There are numerous troubling elements of Mr Farotimi’s encounter with Nigerian legislation enforcement, starting with the unnecessarily aggressive and confrontational method during which his arrest was affected. The CCTV footage launched by his workplace after his arrest revealed the totally unprofessional and violent nature of the cops who travelled out of the state of their posting to arrest him. The officers weren’t wearing uniform and will have handed as armed thugs. Additionally they threatened Mr Farotimi’s employees for no motive after unlawfully seizing their telephones. The brutal method of his arrest suggests the apprehension of a bandit on a most-wanted listing, slightly than a publicly accessible human rights lawyer.

Much more troubling than the style of the arrest was the rationale adduced for it. Earlier than he was unlawfully “picked up” from his workplace on the 2nd of December, Mr Farotimi had foretold the Nigerian public of his impending arrest. In a press launch that went out from his workplace a day earlier than, he acknowledged that the police had invited him to reply sure claims he had made in his most up-to-date e-book. Mr. Farotimi went on to state that his impending arrest was being orchestrated by two {powerful} people – Chief Tony Elumelu and Chief Afe Babalola (CFR, SAN) – who had been apparently displeased with the unflattering depictions he had made from them in his e-book. Relatively than difficult his claims by suing him for defamation in a civil court docket, they determined to wield their monumental affect to have him arrested, detained, and charged to court docket for against the law that doesn’t exist within the jurisdiction of his arraignment.

One other troubling side of this saga is the truth that Mr Farotimi was charged by the Police earlier than a Justice of the Peace Courtroom in Ekiti State on 16 counts of prison defamation. Nonetheless, prison defamation is unknown to the Ekiti State’s Prison Legislation of 2021, which presently spells out the prison legislation regime in Ekiti State. It additionally doesn’t exist within the Prison Code of Lagos the place Mr Farotimi resides, works, presumably wrote his e-book, and was kidnapped from.

Defamation is a civil matter and ought to be handled as such. Part 4 of the Police Act 2020 clearly forbids the police from wading into civil issues. In an orderly society constructed on the rule of legislation, these contending the veracity or in any other case of the claims Mr Farotimi made in his e-book or who really feel he has defamed them in any of his writings or speech would search justice within the civil court docket, the place Mr Farotimi would have needed to defend his claims or present redress, ought to he have been discovered to have maligned their character. Within the course of, the assets of the Nigerian state, our legislation enforcement brokers, and our prison justice system wouldn’t be trivialised and expended on pursuing private vendettas. When an individual feels that his or her popularity has been tarnished, the legislation creates alternatives for redress in a civil court docket. As Nigeria’s Supreme Courtroom identified in 2021, prison defamation was invented by the ‘Star Chamber” in late Mediaeval England. That’s the reason it has been written out of the legislation in most states in Nigeria, in addition to in lots of extra Commonwealth nations.

One other troubling side of this saga is the truth that Mr Farotimi was charged by the Police earlier than a Justice of the Peace Courtroom in Ekiti State on 16 counts of prison defamation. Nonetheless, prison defamation is unknown to the Ekiti State’s Prison Legislation of 2021, which presently spells out the prison legislation regime in Ekiti State. It additionally doesn’t exist within the Prison Code of Lagos the place Mr Farotimi resides, works, presumably wrote his e-book, and was kidnapped from. Our Structure supplies in Part 36(12) that “topic as in any other case supplied by this Structure, an individual shall not be convicted of a prison offence except that offence is outlined and the penalty subsequently is prescribed in a written legislation”. The Nigerian Supreme Courtroom has repeatedly affirmed this canonical provision because the anchor of our prison jurisprudence, so we’re left to marvel underneath which powers the court docket in Ekiti presumed to order the remand of Mr Farotimi. Furthermore, the act of charging Mr Farotimi earlier than the Justice of the Peace Courtroom for a “crime” that the Courtroom clearly didn’t have jurisdiction to entertain, is an abuse of authorized processes.

The Police ought to drop the costs in opposition to Mr Farotimi and he ought to be instantly launched with out preconditions. The Legal professional Common of Ekiti State ought to step in instantly to formally discontinue the case in opposition to Mr Farotimi if the police don’t act quick sufficient in doing so. All legal guidelines that help prison defamation in Nigeria’s prison jurisprudence ought to be instantly repealed and instances initiated underneath these legal guidelines ought to be struck out by the courts. We have to make the case that our legislation enforcement businesses have to uphold their constitutional mandate to serve and shield residents, slightly than act as instruments for the {powerful} to silence dissent.  

A professor of Political Science and improvement advisor/skilled, Jibrin Ibrahim is a Senior Fellow of the Centre for Democracy and Growth, and Chair of the Editorial Board of PREMIUM TIMES.