A book authored by activist lawyer Dele Farotimi has sparked a strong reaction from legal luminary Afe Babalola, the founder of Afe Babalola University (ABUAD) in Ado Ekiti.
The book, titled Nigeria and its Criminal Justice System, offers an unflinching critique of Nigeria’s justice system, with Farotimi accusing Babalola, a prominent figure in Nigeria’s legal circles, of using his influence to manipulate the Supreme Court in order to secure a fraudulent judgment for his clients.
“The Nigerian justice system is in itself criminal, lending credence to how the criminality of the judiciary is completely reflective of the Nigerian state in its full ramifications and with full evidence of how this rot; having become systemic is insidious and reaches to the very top of the judicial system,” he stated.
What Farotimi’s book says of Afe Babalola
· That Aare Afe Babalola corrupted the Supreme Court to procure a fraudulent judgment in the service of his clients.
· 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.
· That Atilade O, Justice at the time and the 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 Atilade, J (Justice Atilade) quashed the fraudulently obtained warrant following an application of counsel in protest against same.
· That 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 to the Eletu family thus betraying the public trust.
· That Afe Babalola libelled 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.
· That Oyekan-Abdullai, J was the instrument of injustice employed to deny me my day in court.
· That the Nigerian Justice System is criminal and complicit and can therefore not uphold the tenets of true justice nor the dispense thereof to which it is sworn.
Other claims by Farotimi
In page 59, he wrote about the role of a judge of Lagos State High Court allegedly working along the direction of Mr Babalola, who he referred to as “the grandmaster of judicial corruption in Nigeria”.
The excerpts read, “But even as Atilade J played the contrition game, she was already part of the game plan corruption in Nigeria being stitched together by the grandmaster of judicial corruption in Nigeria, Afe Babalola. I have come to the conclusion that the required form of the application and her ruling were all part of the insidious plans of Afe Babalola, his band of crooked lawyers and coterie of crooked/incompetent justices of the Supreme Court.”
He also wrote on page 66, “But apparently, we had underestimated the extent of the putrefaction of the Supreme Court and the extent of Chief Afe Babalola’s corrupt reaches into the innards of the Supreme Court”
“But the court as though enthralled by whatever Afe the Circus Master had Promised the Justices, acted with utmost carelessness about the integrity of the court, the interest of the citizens and the State that they had been sworn to protect. The conspiracy was always a step ahead of us because some of the clients mistook key members of the confederacy of friends and helpers,” the excerpt read.
In page 80, the author stated, “But Afe knew that he could get the Supreme Court to do whatever he wanted and to rule however he asked. Pedro knew this too and he being the original Lagos boy, showed Afe a bit of Lagos magic. Afe Babalola and the Eletus might have killed the buffalo but had no way from feeding from the carcass. We have turned the corrupt triumph at the Supreme Court into a pyrrhic victory and it was at this point that Pedro craftily inserted himself into the plot.”
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This is a civil case that is presumably a bailable offence but the fact that Farotimi was refused bail in this simple matter is a pointer that his remand in prison custody may have been influenced as he rightly alleged in his book about the ‘perverted Supreme Court case.’ Something needs to be done about personality influencing court cases in Nigeria, most especially at the Supreme Court level.