‘Let’s travel the natural route’
Rights lawyer, author and activist, Dele Farotimi has sent a strong message, warning that no one should plead Aare Afe Babalola or anyone for his release.
Farotimi who is standing trial on matters bordering on claims in his book entitled, ‘Nigeria and Its Criminal Justice System’ said he wanted his case to travel the natural route.
The lawyer in his message which was conveyed via a Human Rights lawyer and Activist, Tope Temokun, insisted that he would laugh at last.
According Tope, “Around 4:30pm of this day, Friday, the 13th of December, 2024, we stepped out of the Correctional Service (prison) in Afao road, Ado Ekiti, where we were with Dele Farotimi.
He speaks calmly but with loud message. He is unambiguous about it, that all he wrote in his book is the truth. One thing is clear from this visit and hours long talk, that Dele Farotimi knows things that the crowd does not know.”
Farotimi declared too that while he could not control who Peter Obi would visit in Ekiti, he never sent anyone to Babalola and he had warned those who had visited him, including Peter Obi, never to visit anyone to plead for his release.
He wants this matter to travel the natural route. He disowned in categorical terms, any move by anybody to beg anyone on his behalf or as a condition for his release,
He assertively, vibrantly and untiringly posited that if he had added a single lie to his claims in his book, he would lose heavily in this battle. But if his weapon remains all truth, he will have the last laugh.
Those who postulated that Dele Farotimi is reckless in his writings and documentations, should rather demand a fair play and a level play ground so that we could hear the other side.
Citizens should be interested to know what he knows as proof.
But Farotimi is kept in prison while his opponents are tooling up in law suits in Ibadan, Abuja and Rivers seemingly poised for a fight and funnily serving all these court processes on a man in his prison cell in Ekiti where he cannot readily make his defence”.
While questioning the surrounding circumstances of Farotimi’s trial, Tope quipped:
“A question that should bother everyone is this: this book has been out for some time, so why did it take so long to file all these lawsuits? Why did they have to wait until his arrest? Why did they have to wait until his remand? Why did they have to ensure he was kept out of circulation and his voice silenced before raising these issues? Why did they wait until now? Is this how jurisprudence works? Is this how history works? Has jurisprudence developed in this way?
A man is held in cuffs and at the gallows, yet some of us, in defense of orthodoxy, accuse him of blasphemy instead of demanding justice for all parties involved. They are convicting and crucifying Farotimi without hearing him, even in the home city of Pilate.
This rain rains in torrents but it shall not rain for long. It shall be temporary. Soon things will unravel. The ground will be dry again,”