Dele Farotimi moves to seek permanent licence revocation for lawyers involved in his arrest, defamation case from LPDC

Human rights lawyer Dele Farotimi has moved to write petitions to the Legal Practitioners Disciplinary Committee (LPDC), seeking to stop some lawyers from practising law in Nigeria.

A request from Chief Afe Babalola’s law firm, Emmanuel Chambers, to revoke Farotimi’s law licence over criminal defamation and professional misconduct was recently dismissed by the body.

The allegations arose from a petition filed by Emmanuel Chambers through one of its lawyers, Mr. Ola Faro, claiming that Farotimi, in his book “Nigeria and Criminal Justice System”, made defamatory remarks about the Supreme Court and the legal profession.

The human rights lawyer particularly referenced a case (SC/146/2006) between Major Muritala Gbadamosi Eletu and HRH Oba Tijani Akinloye, alleging corruption, bribery, and unethical conduct within the judiciary and legal community in the book.

But despite Emmanuel Chambers' insistence that Farotimi’s book violated provisions of the Rules of Professional Conduct for Legal Practitioners 2023 and called for Farotimi’s name to be removed from the Roll of Legal Practitioners, the LPDC in its report (B8B/LPDC/1571/2024), said the alleged offences occurred in Farotimi’s role as an author, not during his professional practice as a lawyer. It thus concluded that it lacked jurisdiction to adjudicate on matters related to publications and advised the complainants to seek redress through the regular courts.

However, Farotimi a video published on his YouTube channel on Sunday.

In the video, the first of such since his release on bail following his incarceration over ongoing defamation charges, he revealed that he would also be seeking legal reliefs and redresses against everyone involved in his 'abduction'.

He stated: "I will be seeking legal reliefs and redresses against everyone involved in my abduction. I shall be defending each and everyone of the many suits - civil and criminal -that have been filed against me rigorously.

"When we are done, I shall by myself be writing petitions to LDPC looking to ensure that some lawyers do not ever practise law in this country again. Let us be clear, I remain your brother, I remain Dele Farotimi Esq. SAN - Senior Accused of Nigeria, victim of Nigeria, but a conscious victim capable of articulating the conditions of the victim. I am not a victim again I am a threat..."