Dele Farotimi granted N50m bail, as trial shifts to magistrate

Admin I Monday, December 09, 2024

 

ADO-EKITI, Nigeria – A Federal High Court sitting in Ado-Ekiti, Ekiti State today granted bail to the human rights crusader, Dele Farotimi who has been incarcerated for days for alleged defamatory publication against Aare Afe Babalola, SAN.

The Presidential candidate of the African Action Congress, AAC, Omoyele Sowore  announced on X that the human right lawyer has been granted bail in the sum of N50 million. He will also need two sureties in like sum and perfect the bail before he will be allowed to leave. Sureties must have landed property in choice places in Nigeria.  Th is case at the Federal High Court has been adjourned to 29 January 2025.

Sowore said the trial will however continue at the Magistrate Court in Ekiti  tomorrow Tuesday over a non-existent  offence in Ekiti law books.

“We have asked the Attorney General of Ekiti State to discontinue the trial immediately”, he said on X. Farotimi had in his book, “Nigeria and its criminal justice system”, alleged that the Senior Advocate who now runs Afe Babalola University, “Corrupted the Supreme Court to procure a fraudulent judgment  in the service of his client; that the law firm of S.B Joseph & Co. procured  a warrant to execute the said judgment by doctoring  the original judgment of the Supreme Court”.

He alleged further that “Atilade O. Justice at the time and Administrative Judge of the Lagos Judicial Division unlawfully issued a warrant of execution based on the doctored judgment  and without the enrolled order of the Supreme Court.

“That the Aare Afe Babalola,  Olu Daramola, Olu Faro and the law offices of Afe Babalola & Co(Emmanuel Chambers) compromised the Supreme Court and the remaining semblance of integrity it might have had when they went  back to the Supreme Court and got that court to swim in the sewer of corruption and shameful self-abnegation.

“That Lawal Pedro SAN, at the material time the Solicitor-General of Lagos State corrupted himself, abandoned the interests of the State, its citizens and any pretense to decency and became the undisclosed  attorney of Eletu family thus betraying the public trust.

“That Afe Babalola libeled me and the fact of the libel became known to me in his suit against Lawal Pedro SAN.

“That I sued  Afe Babalola SAN for libel and that he leveraged his influence in the judiciary to deny me justice”, among other allegations. Dele Farotimi made 10 allegations in the book