The National Coordinating Council of Save Democracy Mega Alliance 2027 (SDMA’27), has called on President Bola Tinubu and the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Kudirat Kekere-Ekun, to exert the powers of their respective offices to effect the immediate release of detained human rights lawyer, Barr. Dele Farotimi, from what the movement described as “shameful, surreptitious and heinously unlawful detention.”
The South-West Zonal Coordinator of SDMA, Chief Oloye Adeniji, who spoke on behalf of the group said the way and manner Faeotimi was arrested and bundled to Ekiti State over alleged defamation shows that Nigeria is gradually returning to the dark day military dictatorship.
His words: “The unethical abduction, furtive transfer of Dele Farotimi from the Lagos State jurisdiction over his alleged offences of defamation to Ekiti, accelerated arraignment and remand in jail, all within 24hours, reflect the worst of Gestapo methods and Nigeria’s dark days of military dictatorship, which we thought we had consigned to the inglorious past.”
“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.” Describing Farotimi’s arrest as a kidnap, Adeniji, said:
“The state kidnap and persecution of Barr. Dele Farotimi, a renowned erudite lawyer and human rights advocate of stately proportions, has exposed the dangers and extents to which government agencies are willing to embrace despotic rule, spill the blood and constitutionally entrenched freedoms of the Nigerian people on the altars of tyranny.”
He added: “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 South-West 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.
“We in the South-West view these developments as a let-down to the records of our heroes past in the struggles for democracy in Nigeria. In view of the aforesaid, we are calling on all Nigerians and well-wishers of good governance throughout Nigeria to join us on Tuesday (today) as we proceed to the barricades in solidarity with our iconic human rights compatriot.
“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 South-West 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!”
Adeniji, who also called on international human rights watch dogs to focus their binoculars on Nigeria in order to exonerate the image of their offices from the odious perceptions caused by this atrocious judicial mishap, advised that the Tinubu administration and the CJN should crank the machineries of their respective offices to ensure immediate release of Farotimi and amend the Ekiti police charges from criminal to civil offence which is liable to only civil prosecution.
Chairman of SDMA, Comrade Abbas Alao, on his part, said: “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.
“The Federal Government and its 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 President Tinubu, 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.”
Recall that the Ekiti State police command through its Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), DSP Abutu Sunday, on December 2, confirmed Farotimi’s arrest in Lagos by the operatives of the command.
Briefing the press in Ekiti, the PPRO stated, amongst others, that Farotimi is 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.
Farotimi was subsequently processed through interrogations at the Ado-Ekiti command headquarters for the alleged offences against the Ekiti born legal luminary, Aare Afe Babalola (SAN), who is also the founder of Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti.
The activist was brought to a court presided over by Chief Magistrate Abayomi Adeosun on Wednesday December 4, on an eight-count charge. He was refused bail and remanded in the Ekiti State correctional centre.
Two days after, December 6, the Inspector-General of Police updated the original eight-count charges to 16. The alleged offences of defamation and cyber bullying were said to be contained in a book written by Farotimi titled “Nigeria and Its Criminal Justice System.”
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