Farotimi was arrested at his chambers by the Ekiti State Police Command for accusing Afe Babalola of corrupting the judiciary in his book titled “Nigeria and its Criminal Justice System” and remanded on Wednesday.
The lead counsel to Babalola, Owoseni Ajayi, during a chat with journalists at Afe Babalola Bar Centre, Ado-Ekiti on Friday stated that Farotimi’s defamatory remarks in his book were targeted to injure the hard-earned reputation of the legal icon, which cannot be remedied by any award of damages.
According to Vanguard, the former Justice Commissioner in Ekiti, joined by the duo of state’s ex-chairmen of NBA, Olasunkanmi Falade and Lawrence Fasanmi, explained that Farotimi has been inconvenient with Babalola, who won a land dispute case in 2014, where the human rights activist was neither a party nor a counsel in the case.
Babalola had filed a motion for the variation of the judgment of the Supreme Court to correct clerical errors on a certain land portion, which further affected some estates where Farotimi happened to be a lawyer to one of them.
Owoseni emphasised that Farotimi wrote the book not because any injustice was done to him, but because he could not get judgement for his client in court.
The lead counsel wondered why Afe Babalola, who was accused of corrupting the judiciary would lose cases in court and still be fined with over 30 million naira by the same Supreme Court accused of corruption.
He added that Farotimi’s action is an offence punishable under Section 59 of the Criminal Code Act, which emphasises the publication of false news with intent to cause fear and alarm in the public.
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