{"id":57697,"date":"2024-12-05T09:38:30","date_gmt":"2024-12-05T09:38:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/?p=57697"},"modified":"2024-12-05T09:59:37","modified_gmt":"2024-12-05T09:59:37","slug":"57697","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/2024\/12\/05\/57697\/","title":{"rendered":"Atiku, Afenifere Criticize Police Over Farotimi\u2019s Detention"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Emmanuel Ogbodo<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and the pan-Yoruba socio-political group, Afenifere, have strongly condemned the arrest and detention of human rights lawyer, Dele Farotimi, by the police.<\/p>\n<p>Farotimi, detained on Monday and arraigned in Ekiti State, faces 16 charges, including defamation and cyberbullying, linked to allegations in his book, Nigeria and its Criminal Justice System.<\/p>\n<p>The book claims that senior lawyer Aare Afe Babalola (SAN) compromised the Supreme Court. Farotimi pleaded not guilty during his court appearance on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>Despite his lawyer Temidayo Akeredolu&#8217;s appeal for bail, citing Farotimi\u2019s health and professional standing, Chief Magistrate Abayomi Adeosun ordered his remand at the Ado Ekiti Correctional Centre.<\/p>\n<p>The bail hearing is set for December 10, 2024.<\/p>\n<p>Atiku condemned the arrest, describing it as a return to oppressive tactics reminiscent of military rule.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is a gross abuse of power and a reminder of the dark days of military dictatorship when dissent was silenced with tyranny,\u201d he said, adding that defamation is a civil matter that does not warrant criminal charges.<\/p>\n<p>Afenifere also expressed outrage, with its General Secretary, Chief Sola Ebiseni, stating that the court should have granted bail considering the bailable nature of the charges.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDenying bail for a bailable offence like defamation is a clear miscarriage of justice,\u201d Ebiseni remarked, urging that Farotimi\u2019s health and status should have been grounds for bail on liberal terms or self-recognizance.<\/p>\n<p>Farotimi\u2019s lawyer argued that the charges, which include accusations of undermining the Supreme Court\u2019s integrity, are baseless and pose no threat to national security.<\/p>\n<p>The case has drawn widespread criticism, raising concerns about free speech and the misuse of the legal system to suppress dissent.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Emmanuel Ogbodo &nbsp; Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and the pan-Yoruba socio-political group, Afenifere, have strongly condemned the arrest and detention of human rights lawyer, Dele Farotimi, by the police. Farotimi, detained on Monday and arraigned in Ekiti State, faces 16 charges, including defamation and cyberbullying, linked to allegations in his book, Nigeria and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":57698,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1386,172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-judiciary","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57697"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57697\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57701,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57697\/revisions\/57701"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}