Dele Farotimi, an activist and attorney, revealed on Sunday that he was still dealing with four different lawsuits from members of the Aare Afe Babalola law office that were filed in various locations.
Speaking at the Toyin Falola Interviews on Sunday, Farotimi revealed this.
The revelation follows Ado Ekiti, Aare Afe Babalola (SAN), the founder of Afe Babalola University, agreeing on January 27 to drop the lawsuits filed against Farotimi.
The police arrested the activist lawyer and charged him in two Ekiti courts when Afe Babalola petitioned the police commissioner in Ekiti State, claiming that Farotimi had defamed him in a book called “Nigeria and its Criminal Justice System.”
IREPORT247NEW had earlier reported that Farotimi faces two lawsuits, over N1 billion damages claim despite Afe Babalola’s case withdrawal and Nigerians are concerned about the status of other pending lawsuits against lawyer and rights activist Mr. Dele Farotimi, just a week after a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN, Chief Afe Babalola, withdrew his cases against him.
This is because, according to Babalola’s petition, the police arrested Farotimi and charged him with 12 counts of cybercrime offences and 16 counts of criminal defamation.
Other lawyers filed lawsuits against the activist, claiming over N1 billion in damages. On December 6, 2024, a SAN, Mr. Kehinde Ogunwumiju, sued Farotimi for allegedly making defamatory statements in his book, “Nigeria and its Criminal Justice System.”
Afe Babalola & Co.’s managing partner requested N500 million in damages and urged the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, High Court in Abuja to stop the book’s publication and sale in physical and online bookstores.
However, Farotimi revealed on Sunday’s talk, which had as its theme “Politics, Law, and Society,” that even though the police had dropped the criminal charges against him after Babalola retracted his petition, he was still the target of four civil lawsuits from various states, all of which were brought by Babalola’s legal team.
Farotimi said, “My inability to speak to certain aspects of this issue is borne out of the fact that, despite the discontinuation of the criminal proceeding, I still have four suits that I am aware of, in four different states of the federation, filed by members of the same law office, against my person.
“I did not sit down in a beer parlour; I was not at an officers’ mess; I was not gossiping. It was not idle, cheap talk. I wrote a book.
“Let us deal with veracity. Anybody can go and read and then come back and challenge me with the lie that I have told.
“This is not a trial of Dele Farotimi. Let nobody make that error. It is a trial of the legal system that we have built as a collective.
“Chief Afe Babalola is more than old enough to be my father. I did not set out to destroy the man or to tarnish his image.
“Nothing personal. I was writing about the institution of the judiciary.
“Multiple names were mentioned in the book, and offices were mentioned. I did not set out to libel anybody. I simply told the truth of what I saw.
“All I did was write a book. Maybe we have become too accustomed to lie and allergic to truth, to the point where telling the truth has become a sin.
“Ninety per cent of the persons criticizing me for whatever they believe my tactics to have been in writing the book have not read the book.
If Nigerians would stop being so philistinic and illiterate, if they would dare to read, there would be no arguments as to the proof of what I have written.”