The presidential candidate of the African Action Congress AAC in the 2023 general election, Omoyele Sowore, has criticised former Labour Party Presidential candidate, Peter Obi for visiting renowned legal icon Chief, Afe Babalola to discuss ongoing legal cases involving activist lawyer, Dele Farotimi.
Obi accompanied by the Labour Party candidate in the 2024 governorship poll in Ondo , Sola Ebiseni had on Monday visited Babalola in his office in Ado-Ekiti, Ekiti state capital to appeal to the Senior Advocate of Nigeria on the matter of Farotimi.
At the meeting which lasted for about two hours, the LP presidential candidate sought forgiveness for Farotimi with an appeal on 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 (today) the Federal High Court sitting in Ado-Ekiti, granted him bail on Monday in the sum of N50m.
But reacting to the development, Sowore, in a post on his X handle on Tuesday 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 actions has dealt a devastating blow to the struggle to root out the alleged corruption in the nation’s judicial system.
“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”, the tweet reads.
