Contrary to assertions by some so-called experts who have been prattling all week that Dele Farotimi wrote what he could not logically substantiate in his book Nigeria and its Criminal Justice System, this was a pre-meditated confrontation. Having depleted the legal means to get justice, he wrote to re-litigate the case in the court of public opinion. He seems calculatedly driven by the Yoruba proverb that says no one dies at the same spot they uttered blasphemy. In the time between your speaking and being punished, much can happen to change social dynamics. From the potpourri of events in the past week, Farotimi got what he wanted. One cannot say the same for Afe Babalola who, by now, would have realised that giving a traducer what they want is not the most prudent battle move. My reading is that Farotimi knew Babalola’s peculiar weakness and worked it to advantage. I will get to that momentarily.

The blowback from this case is another instance that hopefully teaches our elites to rein in their tendency to exploit the warped Nigerian justice system that allows criminal defamation as a legal recourse. Criminal defamation might be legal, but it is unjust. It is a law that exists to regulate the differentials of power and access, one of the many ways rich people further privatise public resources. Since lawmakers are too compromised to expunge the law and law enforcers incapable of the reflexivity that will enlighten them on the stupidity of using state resources to fight an individual over another’s integrity, the best we can do for now is pressure the entitled “big man” not to take that path. In a criminal case, the prosecutor investigates to convict. The Nigerian police, perennially short of resources, spares no expense when sent to prosecute criminal defamation on behalf of another narcissist. Why should the state do that on behalf of an ordinary individual? Babalola, especially, is a man of ample resources, who can afford to fight for his reputation on his own dime.

So, on Friday, Babalola’s legal team held a press conference in Ado Ekiti. Among several things, the lead lawyer Owoseni Ajayi said was: “Those pushing Farotimi are not his friends. By the time they led him to the dungeon, he would realise they were deceiving him. Let me advise his family members to apologise to Aare. Aare Babalola is a builder, not interested in destroying Farotimi.” I was intrigued by what he said it takes for them to call off the police hounds. If someone injured your reputation and that reputation is truly worth the price you placed on it, why would you not be interested in watching them destroyed? Why would Ajayi, so sure of their victory that he boldly asserted that the only possible conclusion to the case is the dungeon, want to settle for the cheap spectacle of Farotimi’s family members with their clasped hands rolling on the floor and begging?

What sealed the picture for me was an article by Kenneth Ikonne where he, like Ajayi, also urged Farotimi to go “beg” Babalola. According to Ikonne, he had won a preliminary objection against Babalola’s suit—which a lawyer is supposed to do, right? —but he was so intimidated by his own victory against the legal giant that he had to go beg Babalola. While Ikonne’s adulating article drips with flattery, it also unwittingly reveals a kabiyesi-complex. It is an attitude that revels in watching other humans’ heads perpetually bowed in servile reverence so they can repay your self-denigration with overwhelming niceness. Babalola seems like a man who likes to be liked, an attitude is consistently weakening because you must always play nice. Please note that there is a vast difference between being nice because you are a decent human and niceness as manipulation, a means to seduce others into becoming your subject. People of the latter category will take you to the top of the pinnacle, show you the extent of their power and glory, and nicely offer you a portion if only you would bend obsequious knees before them. If you refuse, they will then kick your calves until you fall on your face.

Babalola is so used to a world where junior lawyers who defeat him in court still come to his Ado Ekiti palace to prostrate before him that Farotimi’s boldness to confront him must have been jarring. He resorted to his standard weapons of warfare, but as he must have also found out in the past week, the battle terrain has changed. Even if he wins the case, what will be the social value of a reputation held up by the courts? If Farotimi begs him as his lawyer and others have enjoined, what is done cannot be undone.

However, this goes down, and I commend Farotimi’s boldness. We all agree that the Nigerian judiciary is rotten, but the logic of producing rational evidence has made it virtually impossible to progress beyond merely abstract observations. Until we begin to mention names and point accusing fingers at specific people, the issues will remain intractable. Statistically, Nigerian judges and magistrates are the highest receivers of bribes in 2023, beating even the Customs/Immigration! This is according to the NBS. Those who facilitated these transactions are not ghosts. We have all been witnesses to the several instances where retiring judges have severely deplored the rot in the judiciary. It is amusing to see some people pretending Farotimi revealed what they did not already know.

Our society maintains an overly reverential attitude toward people who have money and power and are elderly. When a person combines all three, we are virtually cowed before their almighty presence. Otherwise, why can we not ask, if defamation is an offence that supposedly lessens someone’s reputational worth, what exactly would constitute it in the case of persons who have practised law in morally decrepit and with progressively weakened institutions like Nigeria for 60-plus years? Which of the atrocities that presently bedevils the country does not have the hands of the so-called learned class in it? This is not to disparage the legal profession or caricature lawyers, but we can not talk about what is wrong with Nigeria today without the role lawyers have played in vandalising the temple of justice. From the so-called “legal luminaries” who—through endless frivolous election petitions—rendered democracy incoherent to the ones with the “SAN” appendage to their names who fraternise with politicians, they remade the country in their amoral image.

We were all here when a partner in the firm of a high-profile lawyer solicited the client of another, saying their principal’s political influence would “significantly switch things in favour” of the prospective client. While that woman was disowned and eventually debarred, it was a moment of self-revelation as to how the justice system operates. Big names in the legal system do not necessarily correspond with a deep knowledge of the law. It just means they know which judge to buy and which string to pull. We witnessed a lawmaker publicly admitting that his judge’s wife helped his colleagues win their various cases. In a serious country, every case that the woman adjudicated would have been recalled and scrutinised, but this is Nigeria. Nothing ever happens here. This is the utterly compromised ecosystem in which Babalola has practised law and thrived to the point he built a magnificent university. He was also a lawyer and confidant to former President Olusegun Obasanjo, whose administration reputation was thoroughly corrupt. Nobody, not even the staunchest of his defenders, has said of Farotimi’s allegations that “it cannot possibly be true”. What they all say is, “It cannot be proven,” and that is telling enough.

Given the contradictions of his profession, Babalola should have been circumspect enough to not jump into a public contest over his reputation. He seems to me like a man who has invested in being nice just so that he would not be remembered as a villain in Nigeria’s story. Now he is no longer the man with the carefully curated legacy who set out to redeem his image but the one who proved his critic right.

Until we begin to mention names and point accusing fingers at specific people, the issues will remain intractable

DesChyko:


- Abimbola Adelakun

https://x.com/RealOlaudah/status/1868200405009600762?t=WWhAidzCEl4iGnwsI3JHwA&s=19

Xisnin:
.Don't let this author deceive you. She has been writing articles for years and have
never specifically mentioned a name or point accusing fingers at people.

emkz:
Serious allegations were made against several persons in the book. Strong and intemperate words were used by the author and the sensible thing for any aggrieved person was to seek redress in court.

The sensible thing left for Dele Farotimi is to back up the issues he raised with evidence. This is

The judges of the Supreme Court have been accused of corruption and being bribed as well as sitting on appeal over a case that the same court had decided on. This makes the case a serious national security affair. The state security services need to investigate the judges and invite the claimant.

The judge who quashed the libel suite needs to file a defense as well because Dele could not establish how she compromised herself except that she could not sit on the case due to conflict of interest.

What did I glean from the book?

1. The author painstakingly demonstrated he was proud and could not be controlled. This was clear when he got into a needless fight with a company typist over English language. The author used one paragraph on self-praise of learning linguistics, reading the Bible and unnecessary verbiage to justify why he could not be wrong. As a new lawyer, he ought to have demonstrated willingness to learn. There are standards for drafting which lawyers learn, and which the typist may have known beyter than him. In attempting to teach his boss his job, he proved he was unreachable.

2. The author proved that he loved money. This is is why he became a land dealer.

3. The author was occupationally unstable as he moved from one firm to another and did not stay anywhere beyond two years.

4. The author lambasted two of his employers, including one that was completely unnecessary as it had no bearing to the book.

5. The author demonstrated his pride was deeply hurt since Afe Babalola got the better of him. For example, when he was entertained in Afe Babalola's firm in Magodo, the head of chambers did not meet him. Instead, a young counsel was sent to meet him. Recall he brashfully resigned because his boss did not tell the typist her position in the firm.

6. The author's explanation of his involvement in the land case was unsatisfactory. He presented a weak justification for his involvement. The questions he left us with is: where was he when the case was ongoing? How come the other lawyers who represented the Ojomu Chieftaincy family were not as abrasive as him? What was in the deal for him? Why would he reveal other issues Afe Babalola had with his clients?

7. The book looked like a malicious and blackmail piece. It would have fared better if a professional editor worked on it. On the backpage, Rufai Oseni claimed to have reviewed the book. What is Rufai Oseni's competence in editorializing?

Xisnin:
Interesting.
So fighting a defamer now makes someone a narcissist.


Don't let this author deceive you. She has been writing articles for years and have
never specifically mentioned a name or point accusing fingers at people.

Before you mention names and point fingers, make sure you are absolutely sure of what
you are saying and there is evidence to back it up. Otherwise, you will find yourself in a very
deep mess that no social media noise can dig you from.

Xisnin:
Interesting.
So fighting a defamer now makes someone a narcissist.


Don't let this author deceive you. She has been writing articles for years and have
never specifically mentioned a name or point accusing fingers at people.

Before you mention names and point fingers, make sure you are absolutely sure of what
you are saying and there is evidence to back it up. Otherwise, you will find yourself in a very
deep mess that no social media noise can dig you from.

emkz:
I did a review elsewhere for those who have not read the book.

https://www.nairaland.com/8288169/nigeria-criminal-justice-system-dele.

shivisee:
Pandora and his osudient don push dele inside well again! The moment they start praising him,I knew the lier is doomed! When I read Achebe's story and his side in the civil war,”how he was using propangandas to sell his book, I realised that propangandas is an Ibo DNA embedded features! Such babaric features is always pass down from generations to generations. Throughout Achebe's life,he and other low budget writers were peddling lies about Nigeria! He was refer to as a propangandist in the civil war on WILKIEPEDIA! I mean gowon is still negotiating to go back to aburi to renegotiate the agreement,but Ojukwu been a greedy man think,he can quickly corner nigerias oil and started selling it to buy ammunitions,him and his inexperience soldier started robbing CBN! That was what started the war! Yet they use propangandas to claim victim! It’s the same style dele wanted to use to blow by first praising obidient and ibos! Thinking in his idiotic mind,he can mess with anybody!

Judolisco:
U guys think defamation is a small offence.... ABC news jst settled out of court with Donald Trump for calling him a rapist on live television, and now they're going to pay 15m dollars....... If dis was in Nigeria,una go Don dey shout oppression....

U jst don't go around accusing people of something without proofs

Lawmaker scores Lagos Water Corporation low

A Lagos State lawmaker, Mr Saka Fafunmi, on Thursday expressed dissatisfaction at the performance of the state Water Corporation.

Fafunmi, a member of the Lagos State House of Assembly (LAHA), said in Ikeja that the corporation had not been able to justify statutory allocations to it.

The lawmaker, who represents Ifako-Ijaiye Constituency 1 at the assembly, spoke to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).

He said that the corporation had the capacity to generate much fund internally through water rates but had relied solely on government funding because of poor performance.

'' Anyone that is using water will be willing to pay for it; the corporation has not been giving us water.

"Is there any new community that Water Corporation has given water? People depend on boreholes; even government estates have industrial boreholes.

"Why do we keep pumping money into an agency that does not give us the desired results?'' he asked.

He noted that the Adiyan Waterworks was located at Ifako-Ijaiye, where many of the residents had resorted to digging boreholes as a means of getting water.

''A lot of people are falling sick because they don't drink clean water.

''In the same compound, where you have sewage, is where you have a borehole.

''There is no way you can manage the sewage that it will not leak and pollute the water; everyone drinking such is drinking contaminated water,'' he said.

The lawmaker urged the corporation to increase water reticulation and supply to residents.

From: http://www.punchng.com/politics/lawm...rporation-low/
https://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1056&context=mes_capstones;Ensuring

BafanaBafana:
Okay...
Seems it a a Yoruba thing to make men demigods and live in perpetual servitude to those men. That is how they worship Tinubu. If Tinubu slaps their father today, they will tell him to go and apologize

chuksikem:
What exactly is peter obi doing in Anambra state?

Am confused to say the least, please someone should tell me because the anambra i visited has degenerated so much,

chuksikem:
Was in awka some days back ,its really shameful, my heart bleeds for my state, from amansea to awka is still the same, pothole riddled roads, non-functioning street lights, refuse littering the entire state capital from arroma junction down to Ziks avenue, ,arthur eze,unizik junction,court road,udoka housing estate etc are still the same, no changes at all, the state capital still looks like a glorified village,

Civil servants and pensioners are been owed 3 MONTHS salary, so many abandoned projects yet the woman sounding governor is always in abuja 24/7.

Please peter obi's handlers on nl should please enlighten us,

A state that has the highest number of successful human beings in the entire black nation, it hurts,

Wish soludo had won ,

Kobojunkie:
.... @Poster, he is doing exactly what the people elected him to come do again. I mean for a man with meagre list of accomplishments during his first time, why else would he had been re-elected if not to continue the same?? undecided undecided undecided

PROUDIGBO:


^^^I'm trying to, but i can't fault your reasoning.

DesChyko:


So long as Dele Farotimi of DF Legal is an Obidient and stands against the corrupt Nigerian leadership, it is crystal clear where you, emkz, will pitch your tent. No links required, really 🤷🏾‍♂️

Xisnin:
Interesting.
So fighting a defamer now makes someone a narcissist.


Don't let this author deceive you. She has been writing articles for years and have
never specifically mentioned a name or point accusing fingers at people.

Before you mention names and point fingers, make sure you are absolutely sure of what
you are saying and there is evidence to back it up. Otherwise, you will find yourself in a very
deep mess that no social media noise can dig you from.
God bless you