For visiting the legal luminary, Aare Afe Babalola, apparently to intervene in the roiling dispute between him and human rights lawyer, Dele Farotimi, Mr. Peter Obi, Labour Party presidential candidate in the 2023 vote, has come under the sharp edge of Omoyele Sowore’s tongue.
The Labour Party leader had, on Monday, visited Babalola in his office in Ado-Ekiti, the Ekiti state capital, to appeal to the Senior Advocate of Nigeria on the matter of defamation between him and Farotimi.
Sowore, presidential candidate of the African Action Congress, AAC, in the 2023 general election, speedily picked the gauntlet and lampooned Obi for ‘begging’ the renowned legal icon.
Obi’s third party intervention in the matter is recognized in law as alternative dispute resolution, a process that allows parties to settle matters out of court.
Obi was accompanied by the Labour Party candidate in the 2024 governorship poll in Ondo , Sola Ebiseni.
According to reports, during the meeting which lasted for about two hours, the LP presidential candidate reportedly sought forgiveness for Farotimi with an appeal to the elder statesman to drop the ongoing court cases.
Farotimi is facing criminal defamation and cybercrime charges in an Ekiti State Magistrates’ Court and the Federal High Court, Ado Ekiti.
The defamation charge stems from the allegations in Farotimi’s book entitled “Nigeria and its Criminal Justice System” that accused Babalola of influencing Supreme Court judges.
While the Magistrates’ Court had earlier remanded Farotimi and adjourned the case until Tuesday, November 10, 2024 (today), the Federal High Court sitting in Ado-Ekiti, granted him bail in the sum of N50 million on Monday.
Reacting to the development on his X handle, Sowore, on Tuesday, roundly condemned Obi for visiting Babalola to seek forgiveness for Farotimi.
The AAC presidential candidate who had called for a protest today in Ekiti, Lagos, Abuja and London against the Nigerian police and the judiciary in the handling of the case, said that Obi action has dealt a devastating blow to the struggle to uproot alleged corruption in the nation’s judicial system.
Sowore’s words: “I condemn those who went to “beg” Chief Afe Babalola today over the unjust detention and persecution of @Dele Farotimi; the delegation led by @PeterObi did colossal injustice to the struggle to drain the swamp of judicial criminality in our country.
“Obi’s action is like forcing Rosa Parks to return to back of the bus of racial injustice during the civil rights era in the US! The struggle continues.”
