The major subject that has been trending since the first and second week of December 2024, is the Afe Babalola-Dele Farotimi affair.
The renowned legal luminary, Chief Afe Babalola, petitioned the Nigerian Police in Ekiti State in which he complained that civil rights activist, Dele Farotimi, defamed him in his book, Nigeria and its Criminal Justice System.
Columnists must be at a crossroads to intervene in a matter the hearing of which has begun in a court of competent jurisdiction.
It is a subject of high public interest, but because delving into it by way of ventilating opinions will be prejudicial to fair trial, commentaries are withheld. Therefore, there is a clash of public interest to wade into a matter of reputational nature and the law of prejudicial interference.
Lawyers, law scholars and judges are yet to agree on how far commentators can go when a case if filed in court and proceedings begin.
A school of thought, in fact, believes that a judge worth the office cannot be affected or swayed by the clamour in the public square called commentaries. The Hon. Sir Anthony Mason (AC KBE) in a speech on The Courts and Public Opinion in 2002 at the National Institute of Government and Laws, said: “The traditional judicial view of the relationship between the law and public opinion was summed up in the line: ‘The law is the law is the law.’ “This line”, he went on, “expresses the notion that the law is autonomous set of rules to be applied according to their terms irrespective of community views and opinion. In other words, the law must be applied even if it is contrary to public opinion.”
Quoting Judge Zobel who himself had cited the pronouncement of John Adams to a Massachusetts jury in a murder case, Sir Anthony said the law is inflexible, inexorable and deaf; inexorable to the cries of the defendant, deaf as an adder to the clamour of the populace. According to him, John Adams’ words would ring true 227 years later: “Judges must follow their oaths and do their duty, heedless of editorials, letters, telegrams, picketers, threats, panelists and talk shows. In this country we do not administer justice by plebiscite.”
That being so, I reflected long. I was torn between going full blast into the matter between Chief Afe Babalola and Dele Farotimi and withholding my intervention since court proceedings have started.
Remembering that I am in a different clime, I decided that waiting would be in line with journalism practice in our country. I am not in the US or Britain.
Writing an opinion in Nigeria on what is before the court will be tantamount to sub-judice and regarded as prejudicial to fair trial.
But what is at issue? According to Chief Afe Babalola, the defamation of his character arose from a land sale and ownership tussle. It involved 254 hectares sold to Gbadamosi Bamidele Eletu family far back in 1977 by Ojomu family. The parcel of land was acquired by Lagos State Government. The Ojomu family contested the acquisition in court and won. It then proceeded to court to argue that with the victory the land title had come back to them. The Eletu family to whom the land had been sold before the acquisition kicked. Giving bite to their protest their struggle with the Ojomu family dragged to the Supreme Court.
The Emmanuel Chambers of Afe Babalola represented the Eletu family at the Supreme Court and the Eletu family won. In the judgment delivered on 13 July, 2013, the Supreme Court held as follows:
“Where a party has fully divested himself of all interest in land, no right vests in him to deal with the same property by way of further alienation anymore, He is caught by the maxim, nemo dat quod non habet; that is, he cannot give what he no longer has. In the instant case, it was unfortunate that the respondents claimed title to the whole of their family land compulsorily acquired by the Lagos State Government including the portion earlier sold to the father of the appellants and in which they are in effective possession. The claim so made without disclosing the truth and excluding the said portion so sold was clearly made in bad faith and smacked of insincerity. It was very unconscionable and consequently against the principles of equity and good conscience.”The Supreme Court also held that “A court of law should not allow itself to be used as an engine for the perpetration of fraud, in whatever guise.”
The Justice who wrote the lead judgment committed an error by limiting the land of Eletu to 10 hectares and not 254 hectares sold to Eletu. But the error was corrected through a motion and the entire 254 hectares were recovered when the attention of the Supreme Court was promptly drawn to it.
The Supreme Court in a ruling delivered on 18 March, 2024, granted statutory right of occupancy to the Eletu family.
The Emmanuel Chambers allege that their client then employed the services of a company to enforce judgment before the Babalola firm applied for variation suspecting that their client did so to avoid paying the Chambers’ professional fees.
Several estates on the extensive land and individuals were affected by the judgment. The affected estates filed fresh suits against the Eletu family with the aim, according to Afe Babalola, of frustrating the judgment of the Supreme Court.
The State Government waded in fearing that the judgment might lead to massive dislocation and sought to prevent the breakdown of law and order.
Dele Farotimi was legal counsel to one of the affected estates. Several meetings were held and Eletu family was compensated by the Lagos State Government. The Emmanuel Chambers were displeased with the Eletu family accusing it of agreeing to be lured by the estates into settling some of the suits behind them.
Dele Farotimi must have his version of how he got enmeshed in the bitter fray with Chief Babalola. If excerpts from his book which Chief Babalola quoted extensively in his petition to the Police are any pointers, Chief Afe Babalola could not have had any choice but to invite the police and complain of criminal defamation.
The excerpts are unbelievably shocking and mind-choking. Farotimi must have unassailable evidence to back his pronouncements. I do pray so. Grievances are one thing the language in ventilating them is another. Afterall, even in anger, there could be grace!
Chief Afe Babalo has his enthralling achievements and contributions to public good as well as his involvement in the development of the country—as a lawyer of standing, a philanthropist and an educationist.
I have read all manner of reactions to the blow-out between the two men– Chief Afe Babalola and Dele Farotimi– with many wondering why Babalola has chosen to settle for criminal defamation. Why did he not go for civil defamation and pursue the case quietly?
They justify their concern with the wide circulation the problematic book is gaining in local and international markets, notably through the Amazon reach. The expanding markets can only provide more materials for Chief Babalola to prove his case that the damage to his name and standing is enormous and has gone beyond the shores of Nigeria.
At 95 and still agile, Chief Babalola has been well blessed with a long life. Criminal defamation will enable the case to go on if he were to be called away and the case is not yet concluded. But if it is civil defamation, the case will terminate with his exit from earthly life and it would leave a reputational burden for his children, grand children and great grandchildren to grapple with as legacy hanging around their necks interminably wherever they may go in life. Any innocent error by any of them will rekindle memories of their great grandfather. ”Oh, really? No wonder he is the son of Afe Babalola who polluted our otherwise reputable judiciary.” That is the troubling testimonial they will carry forever. That he corrupted the Supreme Court is one of the issues Babalola wants proven in the court at the moment.
There are more horrendous allegations against the Chief.
The damage being in a book is permanent! In other words, Chief Afe Babalola has no choice but to take steps he has elected and get the book withdrawn from circulation as much as practicable. It is when he is cleared by the court that his family, his grandchildren and succeeding generations will be able to walk the streets freely, anywhere, with their heads raised high.
Farotimi is the chief priest in the shrine of the Obidients and they are tireless noise makers. They have consequently succeeded in mobilizing quite a crowd against Chief Babalola, in Nigeria and overseas. They have not read Chief Babalola’s petition which through propaganda they fear that Farotimi’s challenge is an attempt to silence him, their chief spokesman.
They are unaware that Afe Babalola himself is among prominent South-West (Yoruba) leaders who carry Peter Obi on their heads. He said in the heat of the campaigns, for example, that Peter Obi was the best of the 2023 presidential candidates.
It has to be made plain that in these times, the unique End-Time, we cannot wade through anarchy in the quest for freedom. In the eye of the law, no one can behave without consideration for the borderline.
Laws are what regulate all societies and everyone must be made to settle for due process and the rule of law when we are aggrieved. The society will descend to a jungle without the curb of the law and if everyone says or does whatever he likes with scant or absolute disregard to law the society will be courting disaster; the overall health of the society will be jeopardized.
