•Afe Babalola and Dele Farotimi
For the Nigeria Police Force (NPF), this is not the best of times as it is facing a barrage of attacks over the handling of the matter involving legal luminary, Afe Babalola (SAN) and human rights lawyer, Bisi Farotimi.
Policemen from Ekiti State Police Command last week stormed Lagos State and took away Farotimi over a petition filed by Babalola against the Lagos-based lawyer over an alleged ‘criminal’ defamation resulting from a book authored by him.
Barrister Emeka Iheonu, a Lagos lawyer, while reacting to the police handling of the matter, told our correspondent that he believed that the policemen from Ekiti that arrested Farotimi after receiving the petition, acted wrongly, reports Sunday Independent.
Iheonu stated: “They should have formally invited him, shown him the petition, and asked him to write his statement.
“They should have gathered all the evidence against Mr. Farotimi before charging him to court. For the police to oppose his bail application on the ground that the investigation was ongoing, was appalling. He is presumed innocent until proven guilty.”
Baba Aye, a veteran activist and Editor, Socialist Worker, said: “There is no way the arrest of Dele Farotimi and the unfolding cases against him can be justified. What we are seeing is wanton impunity and shameless repression.”
Baba Aye, Council Member, Progressive International (PI), added: “The police did not only effectively kidnap him. They threatened to shoot staffers in the office and robbed them of their phones. And we say we are living in a sane society? No, this is unacceptable.
“We are witnessing a situation where the high and mighty wants to make it clear that they are beyond reproach.
“Colonial-era laws are being brought to bear with the full force of the bile of a degenerate ruling class with a police force of ‘mad dogs’.
“Working class people, radical youths and activists must push back against this incipient neo-fascist order.”
Comrade Hassan Taiwo Soweto, National Spokesperson, Youth Rights Campaign (YRC), said the conduct of the police so far has been disgraceful and shameful.
Soweto, in a chat with our correspondent, stated: “Defamation is a civil matter. By turning it into a criminal trial, the police and the Nigerian state are trying to redefine all the basic elements and foundation of civil liberties in Nigeria.
“Don’t forget that just recently, the Nigerian state successfully converted protest from the status of a civic action to a treasonable offence, the committal of which merits the death sentence.
“In this case also, what is up for redefinition is the concept of Freedom of Expression. By turning defamation into a criminal matter, Chief Afe Babalola (SAN), using the police and the Nigerian state, is trying to send a note of warning to everyone that while freedom of expression may be guaranteed in our constitution, freedom after speech is a different matter altogether.
“This is the main goal of Dele Farotimi’s ordeal and it is why everyone must rise up to say ‘enough is enough’. Nigerians’ right to freedom of expression is inalienable under the Constitution.
“Where anyone exceeds the limit of that right, our laws give ample opportunity for aggrieved parties to seek redress by undertaking civil legal actions.
“That is the position of the law at the moment and we all must resist this attempt to redefine the law in order to shield highly placed people and corrupt members of the ruling elite from public scrutiny.
“Back to the police, I think the current IGP, Kayode Egbetokun, is bad news for democratic rights. His action over the past few months shows him to be an enemy of the Nigerian people.
“This explains why all his conducts have been decisively aimed at eroding democratic rights and converting the police into paid thugs of state and non-state actors.
“This is a country where the police would take months before undertaking investigation when ordinary citizens file compliant of crime at police stations.
“The way the police orchestrated the speedy arrest and abduction of Dele Farotimi from Lagos to Ekiti State is highly worrisome as it shows the police acting recklessly, not in the service of the Constitution, which they swore to defend, but in the service of private interest.
“And we all know the corrupt police do not do this kind of thing for free. I think the Commissioner of Police in Ekiti State has a case to answer over the abduction of Dele Farotimi.
“He needs to tell the world how he raised funds he used to send policemen to Lagos to ‘abduct’ Farotimi. These are legitimate questions and not something meant to cast aspersions.
“What is the budget of the Ekiti State Police Command and how did they afford to fund the expeditionary force from Ekiti to abduct a Nigerian citizen in Lagos?
“We need a public probe panel to investigate how the arrest of Farotimi by men of the Ekiti Police Command in Lagos, was funded.
“However, after all said and done, we also must say that the police are only acting true to their calling as a tool of oppression in a capitalist society.
“In this sense, the police are leopards which cannot change their spots. To change the police for the better requires replacing the oppressive and exploitative capitalist system with a socialist system under which oppression and exploitation will be a thing of the past and Nigeria’s wealth used to better the lots of all.”
Also, the Committee for the Defence of Human Rights (CDHR), in a statement signed by its president, Debo Adeniran, and Publicity Secretary, Idris Afees Olayinka, noted that Farotimi had raised an alarm of plot by the police to arrest him.
“True to his allegation,” the CDHR recalled, “the police on Monday night (last week), whisked Farotimi away from his Lagos office and took him to Ekiti State where he was eventually arraigned for alleged criminal defamation against Chief Afe Babalola, a legal luminary.
The CDHR stressed that the whisking away of the human rights lawyer to Ado Ekiti, in the first instance, was uncalled for because the alleged offence was not committed in Ekiti.
It maintained that the Lagos State Police Command could have been allowed to handle the case and ensure that the prosecution of the activist was done in Lagos.
