The most important topic that has been trending since final week is the Afe Babalola-Dele Farotimi affair. The famend authorized luminary, Chief Afe Babalola, petitioned the police authority in Ekiti State wherein he complained that civil rights activist Dele Farotimi defamed him in his e-book, Nigeria and its legal justice system. Columnists should be at a crossroads to intervene in a matter the listening to of which has begun in a court docket of competent jurisdiction. It’s a topic of excessive public curiosity, however as a result of delving into it by means of ventilating opinions shall be prejudicial to honest trial, commentaries are withheld. Due to this fact, there’s a conflict of public curiosity to wade right into a matter of reputational nature and the legislation of prejudicial interference.
Attorneys, legislation students and judges are but to agree on how far commentators can go when a case if filed in court docket and proceedings start. A college of thought, actually, believes {that a} choose definitely worth the workplace can’t be affected or swayed by the clamour within the public sq. referred to as commentaries. The Hon. Sir Anthony Mason AC KBE in a speech on The Courts and Public Opinion in 2002 on the Nationwide Institute of Authorities and Legal guidelines, stated: “The normal judicial view of the connection between the legislation and public opinion was summed up within the line: ‘The legislation is the legislation is the legislation.’ “This line”, he went on, “expresses the notion that the legislation is autonomous algorithm to be utilized in line with their phrases regardless of neighborhood views and opinion. In different phrases, the legislation should be utilized even whether it is opposite to public opinion.”
Quoting Decide Zobel who himself had cited the pronouncement of John Adams to a Massachusetts jury in a homicide case, Sir Anthony stated the legislation is rigid, inexorable and deaf; inexorable to the cries of the defendant, deaf as an adder to the clamour of the populace. In line with him, John Adams’ phrases would ring true 227 years later: “Judges should observe their oaths and do their obligation, heedless of editorials, letters, telegrams, picketers, threats, panelists and speak exhibits. On this nation we don’t administer justice by plebiscite.”
That being so, I mirrored lengthy. I used to be torn between going full blast into the matter between Babalola and Farotimi and withholding my intervention since court docket proceedings have began. Remembering that I’m in a special clime, I made a decision that ready could be consistent with journalism follow in our nation. I’m not within the U.S. or Britain. Writing an opinion in Nigeria on what’s earlier than the court docket shall be tantamount to sub-judice and considered prejudicial to honest trial.
However what’s at challenge? In line with Babalola, the defamation of his character arose from a land sale and possession tussle. It concerned 254 hectares bought to Gbadamosi Bamidele Eletu household far again in 1977 by Ojomu household. The parcel of land was acquired by Lagos State Authorities. The Ojomu household contested the acquisition in court docket and received. It then proceeded to court docket to argue that with the victory the land title had come again to them. The Eletu household to whom the land had been bought earlier than the acquisition kicked. Giving chunk to their protest their wrestle with the Ojomu household dragged to the Supreme Courtroom. The Emmanuel Chambers of Afe Babalola represented the Eletu household on the Supreme Courtroom and the Eletu household received. Within the judgment delivered on 13 July, 2013, the Supreme Courtroom held as follows:
“The place a celebration has totally divested himself of all curiosity in land, no proper vests in him to take care of the identical property by means of additional alienation anymore, he’s caught by the maxim, nemo dat quod non habet; that’s, he can not give what he not has. Within the on the spot case, it was unlucky that the respondents claimed title to the entire of their household land compulsorily acquired by the Lagos State Authorities together with the portion earlier bought to the daddy of the appellants and wherein they’re in efficient possession. The declare so made with out disclosing the reality and excluding the stated portion so bought was clearly made in dangerous religion and smacked of insincerity. It was very unconscionable and consequently towards the ideas of fairness and good conscience.” The Supreme Courtroom additionally held that “A court docket of legislation mustn’t permit itself for use as an engine for the perpetration of fraud, in no matter guise.”
The Justice who wrote the lead judgment dedicated an error by limiting the land of Eletu to 10 hectares and never 254 hectares bought to Eletu. However the error was corrected by means of a movement and your entire 254 hectares have been recovered when the eye of the Supreme Courtroom was promptly drawn to it. The Supreme Courtroom in a ruling delivered on 18 March, 2024, granted statutory proper of occupancy to the Eletu household. The Emmanuel Chambers allege that their consumer then employed the providers of an organization to implement judgment earlier than the Babalola agency utilized for variation suspecting that their consumer did so to keep away from paying the Chambers’ skilled charges.
A number of estates on the intensive land and people have been affected by the judgment. The affected estates filed contemporary fits towards the Eletu household with the purpose, in line with Afe Babalola, of irritating the judgment of the Supreme Courtroom. The state Authorities waded in fearing that the judgment may result in huge dislocation and sought to forestall the breakdown of legislation and order. Farotimi was authorized counsel to one of many affected estates. A number of conferences have been held and Eletu household was compensated by the Lagos State Authorities. The Afe Babalola Chambers have been displeased with the Eletu household accusing it of agreeing to be lured by the estates into settling a few of the fits behind them.
Farotimi will need to have his model of how he obtained enmeshed within the bitter fray with Chief Babalola. If excerpts from his e-book which Chief Babalola quoted extensively in his petition to the police are any pointers, Chief Babalola couldn’t have had any selection however to ask the police and complain of legal defamation. The excerpts are unbelievably stunning and mind-choking. Farotimi will need to have unassailable proof to again his pronouncements. I do pray so. Grievances are one factor the language in ventilating them is one other. Afterall, even in anger, there could possibly be grace! Chief Babalola is 95; he has listed his enthralling achievements and contributions to public good in addition to his involvement within the growth of the nation—as a lawyer of standing, a philanthropist and an educationist.
I’ve learn all method of reactions to the blow-out between the 2 males—Chief Babalola and Farotimi— with many questioning why Babalola has chosen to accept legal defamation. Why did he not go for civil defamation and pursue the case quietly? They justify their concern with the extensive circulation the problematic e-book is gaining in native and worldwide markets, notably by means of the Amazon attain. The increasing markets can solely present extra supplies for Chief Babalola to show his case that the harm to his title and standing is gigantic and has gone past the shores of Nigeria. At 95 and nonetheless agile, Chief Babalola has been effectively blessed with a protracted life. Legal defamation will allow the case to go on if he have been to be referred to as away and the case shouldn’t be but concluded. However whether it is civil defamation, the case will terminate along with his exit from earthly life and it could depart a reputational burden for his kids, grand kids and nice grandchildren to grapple with as legacy hanging round their necks interminably wherever they could go in life.
Any harmless error by any of them will rekindle recollections of their nice grandfather.”Oh, actually? No surprise he’s the son of Afe Babalola who polluted our in any other case respected judiciary.” That’s the troubling testimonial they are going to carry perpetually. That he corrupted the Supreme Courtroom is likely one of the points Babalola needs confirmed within the court docket in the mean time. There are extra horrendous allegations towards the Chief. The harm being in a e-book is everlasting! In different phrases, Chief Babalola has no selection however to take steps he has elected and get the e-book withdrawn from circulation as a lot as practicable. It’s when he’s cleared by the court docket that his household, his grandchildren and succeeding generations will be capable to stroll the streets freely anyplace with their heads raised excessive.
Farotimi is the chief priest within the shrine of the Obidients and they’re tireless noise makers. They’ve consequently succeeded in mobilising fairly a crowd towards Chief Babalola, in Nigeria and abroad. They haven’t learn Chief Babalola’s petition which by means of propaganda they worry that Farotimi’s problem is an try to silence him, their chief spokesman. They’re unaware that Afe Babalola himself is amongst outstanding South-West (Yoruba) leaders who carry Peter Obi on their heads. He stated within the warmth of the campaigns, for instance, that Peter Obi was the most effective of the presidential candidates.
It needs to be made plain that in these occasions, the distinctive Finish-Time, we can not wade by means of anarchy within the quest for freedom. Within the eye of the legislation, nobody can behave with out consideration for the borderline. Legal guidelines are what regulate all societies and everybody should be made to accept due course of and the rule of legislation once we are aggrieved. The society will descend to a jungle with out the curb of the legislation and if everybody says or does no matter he likes with scant or absolute disregard to legislation the society shall be courting catastrophe; the general well being of the society shall be jeopardized.
All that is even so far as the earthly is worried. Unknown to an awesome many human beings, each destructive phrase towards man that lowers his esteem within the eyes of his fellowmen will avenge itself most severely and bitterly by means of the Legal guidelines of Nature. To assail him in like method in ideas attracts no much less a consequence. Ideas connect themselves to the thing of our seems or considering, these appeal to related thought kinds from others to kind energy centres of evil. If pure it’s completely different.
We might all have skilled a state of affairs when an individual on whom we repair our gaze all of the sudden turns spherical to look again. That’s the energy of thought. In the long run the guy assailed with impure ideas is poisoned when the thought kinds turn into denser and he’s pressed down with the load of the dross that accumulates on his soul. All who might have contributed to defiling and degrading the guy by means of the threads arising from their filthy ideas linking them pays dearly for his or her acts. They elevate cudgel over issues they know nothing about.
Consequently they gown themselves in out of ignorance. Earlier than the legal guidelines of the Creator ignorance is not any defence. Issues are worse with libel or defamation. For, damaging a person’s title or popularity is tantamount to the killing of the inside man, the actual man, his essence. As I’ve stated a while in the past each man or girl is the title he bears. Any filth thrown at a reputation is filth thrown on the essence of man. In different phrases, within the ethereal world we seek advice from because the Past defamation is a capital offence and the destiny of such an individual concerned is not any much less grave than what an individual who dedicated homicide on earth faces within the Past.
Account shouldn’t be taken of the earthly justice or injustice or of punishment even whether it is execution besides ab initio there’s miscarriage of justice. So once we brag about energy of revolution and we trigger our fellow males hurt, we’re solely deceiving ourselves. We can not, subsequently, be too cautious about what we are saying and do, about our conduct. All have penalties past man’s earthly existence. Adamant is the Legislation. Divine Legal guidelines in any other case referred to as the Legal guidelines of Nature allow of no excuses. They govern your entire Creation, returning to everybody as harvest what he might have sown in Creation.
Kemi Adeosun, a girl of honourIT should take a coronary heart of metal to foray into Nigerian politics. The way in which issues are, it’s an enviornment for the survival of the fittest, as they are saying, the place the person of muscle is the hero and the person of may, the person of means—honest or foul—and the person who shouts the loudest, all have the hope of being kings. This example will stay for a number of years to come back. It’s a interval foreseen and foretold: It might be a time of perplexities. It’s when masters at our sins could be our rulers. This proclaims to us that it’s a interval an awesome many respectable males would avoid the rumbling within the jungle.
I salute the few gents who stretch out their heads for the guillotine of their need to serve us. It’s an enviornment false transgressions could be drawn up, adumbrated and you’d be proven the way in which to your father’s home. It has not all the time been like that. The decline from the usual of the time of yore when males of honour imbued with the spirit of service bestrode the firmament is palpable. It’s on this contrasting putrid age Kemi Adeosun accepted to serve, evidently unaware of her setting.
It might even be worse for girls. Ab initio, political contestation shouldn’t be for them. Their energetic participation in politics is a misadventure that does incalculable hurt to them and mankind normally. That there’s a worldwide clamour by them and for them to interrupt the glass ceiling, as within the phrases of Hilary Clinton, doesn’t make it proper. The richness of their non secular make-up which hyperlinks them extra firmly with Nature for a move of ample Gentle radiations from increased realms to unhinge males from the grip of Darkness and for his or her nurture with civilising tonic, doesn’t lend itself to the rumble and tumble of politics. The make-up is mirrored even outwardly such that whereas males are coarse and durable, ladies are tremendous and delicate!
The reader might surprise why I’m mentioning Kemi Adeosun’ matter at the moment. It’s as a result of the embattled civil proper activist Dele Farotimi has claimed, whereas pointing on the rot and inequality within the land, stated Kemi Adeosun solid her NYSC certificates and as a substitute of being in jail she was Minister of the Federal Republic. Whereas she served the nation with impunity, another person in an identical state of affairs went to jail.
I write to say and defend Kemi Adeosun as I did in 2018 that the extensive declare towards her was false. The column shall be re-run in full subsequent week.
