Senior lawyer decries Farotimi’s handcuffing in court as a shame to the legal profession
By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
A senior lawyer has decried as a shame the handcuffing of rights activist lawyer Dele Farotimi in court in Ado-Ekiti over alleged criminal defamation of Afe Babalola, SAN, in Ekiti that has no criminal libel law – like Lagos where the crime was allegedly committed has decriminalised libel.
Jibril Okutepa, SAN said “to celebrate this as a triumph of justice is to encourage and celebrate the most crooked and wicked disgrace of the nobility of the legal profession.”
Police arrested Farotimi in Lagos on December 3, took him to Ado-Ekiti and arraigned him in a magistrate court (a state court) the next day over alleged libel of Babalola in Farotimi’s recently published book Nigeria And Its Criminal Justice System, now an Amazon global bestseller.
Inspector General of Police (IGP) Kayode Egbetokun later took over some aspects of the case and then added “cyberbullying and criminal defamation” to the charges filed at an Ado-Ekiti Federal High Court, which on Monday granted N50 million bail to Farotimi.
When Farotimi left the high court, he was seen in handcuffs with two armed police officers walking behind him.
And when on Tuesday he appeared at the magistrate court, which had remanded him in prison since December 4, the court extended his detention until December 20 to hear his application for bail.
Nigerians on social media have pointed out how Farotimi’s treatment simply confirms the judicial corruption he articulates in his book, buttressed by the contrast in the treatment of former Kogi Governor Yahaya Bello facing allegation of N82 billion fraud – among other charges – during his tenure who walks freely in and out of court without handcuffs.
In his own reaction, Okutepa posted on X (Twitter):
“It is a shame that Dele Farotimi is handcuffed for alleged cyberstalking or criminal defamation. To celebrate this as a triumph of justice is to encourage and celebrate the most crooked and wicked disgrace of the nobility of the legal profession.
“No mather how uncivilised and unethical Dele Farotimi may have put down his thoughts, which injured the reputation of others, the treatment being metted to him while still a member of the noble profession is as worse as the alleged offence he may have committed.
“Handcuffing a lawyer who is yet to be debarred and who still has his name on the roll of legal practitioners in Nigeria and who has not been shown to be violent in conduct, is not only an abuse of criminal process, it is intolerably disgraceful.
“The legal profession in Nigeria has destroyed itself. Primitive vengeance being undertaking by police institutions in the manner being done to Dele Farotimi is not damaging Dele Farotimi.
“It is destroying the legal profession, and this show of shame is worse and has lowered the intergrity and reputation of the legal profession more than the defamation complained of in the charge.”
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