Human rights lawyer and political activist, Mr. Dele Farotimi was today – Friday, December 20 – granted bail by an Ekiti Magistrate Court after 17 days in detention, over a charge of defamation brought against him by a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) and elder statesman, Chief Afe Babalola.
Babalola claims that Farotimi defamed him in the activist’s controversial bestseller, ‘Nigeria And Its Criminal Justice System.
Consequently, Farotimi, a Lagos-based lawyer and human rights activist, was on December 3 (17 days today) arrested at the instance of Babalola by police officers from Ekiti Police Command, in obvious infraction of the law, and taken to Ekiti and remanded in prison custody.
Farotimi’s arrest and detention has generated a lot of national and international interest in most part because the offence he is alleged to have committed is not a criminal offence that would warrant such arrest and detention by the police.
Abayomi Adeosun, the presiding magistrate, at the Chief Magistrate Court in Ado Ekiti, who granted Farotimi bail in the sum of ₦30 million, also ordered the fearless rights activist not to speak to the media over the issues surrounding his ordeal.
Additionally, he was ordered by the Magistrate, who adjourned his case till February 13th 2025 for hearing, to provide three sureties each with a landed property within the court’s jurisdiction and to submit his international passport as well,
The activist, who was been remanded by the court had arrived at the Magistrate Court premises around 9:45a.m. on Friday, in a prison’s van with a police escort, without the handcuffs in which he was put on December 4, the first time he was brought to the court, allowing him to raise his hands up in appreciation of a cheering crowd outside the court.
Adeosun had deferred verdict on his bail application on December 10 and asked him to be taken back to prison for another 10 days due to the objections raised by Samson Osobu, police prosecutor, who told the court that Farotimi’s bail application following the 14-count amended charge arising from the book Nigeria and its Criminal Justice System, to which he pleaded not guilty, was incomplete, according to Whirlwind News.
