The senior advocate of Nigeria and founder of Afe Babalola University, Aare Afe Babalola, has written a petition against Dele Farotimi for the defamation of character.
Babalola filed a petition to Ekiti State Police Command against Dele Farotimi on November 19 stating that how his law firm discovered Farotimiโs book titled Nigeria and Its Criminal Justice System and the defamatory statements in the book.
The petition read, โI write to report the criminal defamation of myself, my law firm Afe Babalola & Co and my lawyers in person of Olu Daramola SAN and Ola Faro by one Dele Farotimi in his book titled โNIGERIA AND ITS CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEMโ published by Dele Farotimi publishers in respect of Suit no: SC/146/2005: Major Muritala Gbadamosi Eletu & Ors V. H.R.H Oba Tijani Akinloye & Ors.โ
โSometime on 2/11/2024, one of our lawyers while travelling through Murtala Muhammed Airport bought a book by Dele Farotimi titled โNIGERIA AND ITS CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEMโ published by Dele Farotimi publishers. He read the said book and immediately brought it to my attention. Many of my lawyers also bought the said book and read same,โ he added.
Babalola explained that he was defamed of interfering with the courtโs decision through bribes and other acts of evil. The defamatory statement are as follows;
โThat Aare Afe Babalola corrupted the Supreme Court to procure a fraudulent judgement in the service of his clientโ.
โThat 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 the Court to swim in the sewer of corruption and shameful self-Abnegationโ.
โThat Afe Babalola libeled me and the fact of the libel became known to me in a suit against Lawal Pedro SANโ.
โThat I sued Afe Babalola SAN for libel and he leveraged his influence in the Judiciary to deny me justiceโ.
According to Babalola, he stated that the defamatory statements were not true and he was likened to Doyen of the legal profession in the book.