Nigeria Newspapers Online

Lawyer and activist, Dele Farotimi, says 90 per cent of people criticizing his recent book on the Nigerian judiciary have not read the content.

He said despite the recent reported withdrawal of the case filed against him in Ekiti, there are four other cases pending in different courts filed by Aare Afe Babalola’s chamber.

Daily Trust reports that Founder of Afe Babalola University, Ado Ekiti, Aare Afe Babalola (SAN), on January 27, agreed to withdraw the defamation cases instituted against Farotimi over his book titled, “Nigeria and its Criminal Justice System.”

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The decision by the renowned lawyer followed the intervention of some traditional rulers in Yorubaland led by Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Ogunwusi.

But featuring on Sunday’s conversation with Professor Toyin Falola, themed: “Politics, Law and Society” anchored by Professor Farooq Kperogi and Rufai Oseni, Farotimi said despite the reported withdrawal of the cases, four different cases are still pending in various courts on the matter.

He further clarified that he didn’t set out to attack or denigrate Afe Babalola in the book but was determined to correct the systemic rot in the judicial system.

Farotimi however said he wasn’t privy to the discussion by Ooni and other traditional rulers which led to the withdrawal of the cases by Afe Babalola.

He said, “Let me clear a couple of issues. What have been withdrawn are the charges preferred by the police even though they were preferred at the instance of the petitioner (Babalola) who has now withdrawn his petition.

“I have no agreement with anybody as to what I may or may not speak to. I was not privy to the visit by the royalties to Ado Ekiti. I read it in the news like every other person. So if I was not consulted before persons went on a mission to Ado Ekiti, I can hardly be party to an agreement that I wasn’t privy to.

“I had no knowledge whatsoever, so my inability to speak to certain aspects of the issues is borne of the fact that in spite of the fact that the petitioner has withdrawn his petition and there’s a discontinuation of the criminal proceedings, I still have four suits that I am aware of in four different states of the federation filed by members of the same law office against my person.

“So because of the pendency of those suits, I am still constrained about speaking to certain aspects of the books.

“But there are questions you have asked that I am able to either answer or clarify. The first of them is the fact that we have come to label the book ‘notorious’. Persons would prefer to label the book notorious but I have laboured to make clear on numerous occasions, I did not sit down in a beer parlour, I was not in the officers’ mess, I was not gossiping, it was not idle, cheap talk. I wrote a book.

“90 per cent of the persons criticizing me for whatever they believe my tactics should have been in writing the book have not read the book.”

According to him, the book wasn’t directed to destroy the reputation of Afe Babalola whom he said is old enough to be his father.

“The facts of my allegations are right there in the book. If Nigerians would stop being philistinic and illiterate, certificated morons, if they would care to read, there would be no argument as to the proof of what I had written.

“I said from day one that I stood by each and every word in the book that I had written. I said anybody was unhappy with what I had written, they should feel free to take me to court, that I am happy to go through the same legal system that I had labeled as institutionally corrupt. This is not a trial of Dele Farotimi, it is a trial of the legal system that I have built as a collective.

“Chief Afe Babalola is more than old enough to be my father and I did not set out to destroy the man or to tarnish his image, nothing personal. I was writing about the institution of the judiciary, multiple names were mentioned, offices were mentioned. I did not set out to libel anybody. I simply told the truth of what I saw.”