Group urges Tinubu, CJN to free Farotimi, redeem image of judiciary

A human rights advocacy group, Save Democracy Mega Alliance 2027 (SDMA’27), has urged President Bola Tinubu and the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Kudirat Motonmori Kekere-Ekun, to free detained activist and legal practitioner, Dele Farotimi, in order to redeem the image of the judiciary and give currency to democracy in Nigeria.

The national coordinating council of Save Democracy Mega Alliance 2027 (SDMA’27), in a statement, through its Southwest leadership, accordingly, demanded the Federal Government superintended by President Bola Tinubu; as well as the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) to exert the powers of their respective offices to effect the immediate release of detained human rights lawyer, Dele Farotimi, from what the movement described as “shameful, surreptitious and heinously unlawful detention.”

The South-West Zonal Coordinator of SDMA, Oloye Adeniji, on behalf of the nati0onal coordinator, protested that “the unethical abduction, furtive transfer of Dele Farotimi from the Lagos State jurisdiction of his alleged offences of defamation to Ekiti, accelerated arraignment and remand in jail, all within 24 hours, reflect the worst of Gestapo methods and Nigeria’s dark days of military dictatorship, which we thought we had consigned to the inglorious past.”

Oloye maintained: “Our country, long traumatized by military tyranny and evil civil rule, have long gone past this kind of primitive, clandestinely executed and shameless mischief of government conniving with their privileged agents among civil populations to perpetuate the statutes defying circumstances surrounding the arrest, arraignment and imprisonment of a respected citizen and statesman of internationally respected status as Dele Farotimi.”

The chairman of the Human Rights Committee of SDMA, Deacon Comrade Abbas Alao, speaking from Benin City Edo State, in an interaction, admonished: “Let it be clearly understood that we Nigerians of this decade and dispensation forward shall not accept this new horror and crossroads of increasingly deviant, statutes desecrating human rights onslaught by government agencies of the Tinubu administration.
“President Tinubu and his agents in the judiciary, police and civil populations should not roll our civilization a century backwards to confront afresh the horrors of the Abacha days which himself, as a then purported human rights activist, once fought against.
“Before God in his omni-judicial throne, that hypocrisy shall not have a seat and place in today’s Nigeria.”

The group recalled that the Ekiti State Police Command, through its Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), DSP Abutu Sunday, confirmed on Monday, December 2, the arrest of Dele Farotimi, by the operatives of the Ekiti State Command.

The PPRO was cited to have, in a media interaction, stated, amongst others, “The Ekiti State Police Command wishes to inform members of the public that one Mr. Dele Farotimi is currently undergoing investigation following a petition written against him to the Office of the Commissioner of Police, Ekiti State Command for an allegation of defamation of character and cyber bullying.”

The group highlighted that the activist was subsequently processed through interrogations at the Ado-Ekiti command headquarters for the alleged offences against a renowned legal practitioner, Aare Afe Babalola, SAN, who is also founder of Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti. The activist was brought to a court presided over by Chief Magistrate Abayomi Adeosun on Wednesday December 4th on an eight-count charge. He was refused bail and expeditiously remanded in the Ekiti state correctional centre. Two days after, while still in detention, on Friday December 6th the Inspector-General of Police updated the original 8-count charges to 16.

Oloye noted that the alleged offences of defamation and cyber bullying were said to be contained in a book written by Dele Farotimi titled “Nigeria and Its Criminal Justice System,” said to be further amplified in an online podcast interview conducted with the detained author of and activist by popular TV anchorman, Seun Akimbaloye, on his YouTube channel, Mic on Podcast.

Oloye, the Southwest leader of SDMA, in a media interaction, declared: “The state kidnap and persecution of Barrister Dele Farotimi, a renowned erudite lawyer and human rights advocate of stately proportions, has exposed the dangers and extents to which government agencies under the leadership of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu are willing to embrace despotic rule, spill the blood and constitutionally entrenched freedoms of the Nigerian people on the altars of tyranny.

“It is a sad and unfortunate commentary that a government led by the current president, a supposed activist who rose from the barricades of civil rights activism, particularly in the Southwest where agitations for Nigeria’s emancipation and best democratic practice has been loudest, first through woeful economic policies, now additionally aspire to the unenviable pedestal of a despot and Oppressor-in-Chief of the Nigerian people.

“We in the Southwest view these developments as a let-down to the records of our heroes past in the struggles for democracy in Nigeria.

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“In view of the aforesaid, we are calling on all Nigerians and well-wishers of good governance throughout Nigeria to join us this coming Tuesday, 10th of December 2024, as we proceed to the barricades in solidarity with our iconic human rights compatriot, Barr. Dele Farotimi.

“Incidentally, coincidentally and symbolically, the world over shall be celebrating on the same date the International Human Rights Day. Thus, we at SDMA and all well-meaning Nigerians believe indeed that Dele Farotimi’s incarceration this very hour of our nation’s history is a divine incident for all true lovers of democracy. Everyone in Ekiti state, the Southwest and Nigerians in general who live in Ekiti should therefore turn up and stand up to be counted for the release of Farotimi in particular, and the sacred liberties of Nigerians in general!”

Oloye further declared: “Finally, subsequent to the deep-seated perceptions embraced by our country and international human rights watchdogs focusing their binoculars on Nigeria, and in order to exonerate the image of their offices from the odious perceptions caused by this atrocious judicial mishap, it is our candid advice that the Tinubu administration and the CJN should crank the machineries of their respective offices to ensure the immediate release of Dele Farotimi from his present conspiratorial detention, and amend the Ekiti police charges from criminal to civil offence which is liable to only civil prosecution.”