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| Prof Chidi Odinkalu appears on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Wednesday, July 19, 2023. |
A former Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), Prof Chidi Odinkalu, says defamation has been decriminalised in Ekiti, Lagos and Edo states and as such persons seeking remedies for libel or slander can only do so in civil law and not criminal law.
“When you issue a warrant for criminal defamation in Ekiti State, there is no crime of criminal defamation in Ekiti State in 2024,” Odinkalu said on the Friday edition of Inside Sources with Laolu Akande, a socio-political programme aired on Channels Television.
“There are three states that have decriminalised defamation; Ekiti is the third. Wale Fapounda (SAN) was the Attorney General of the state when that happened. Kayode Fayemi was the governor who signed it into law in 2021. Edo State has decriminalised criminal defamation. Lagos State has decriminalised criminal defamation. Ekiti State decriminalised criminal defamation in 2021.”
Odinkalu said the magistrate court in Ekiti should have immediately granted human rights activist and legal practitioner Dele Farotimi bail because the offense was bailable. “A magistrate asking you to bring an application for bail on a charge in which the maximum penalty is two years either has not gone to school properly or has a mission to fulfill,” he said.
The lawyer said in a country with congested prisons and an average detention without trial of three years, the alleged offense of Farotimi is modest and there are compelling policy reasons for the magistrate court in Ekiti to have granted Farotimi bail much earlier than it did.
Odinkalu described as “a travesty of due process” the prosecution of Farotimi, saying every due process that should be breached has been violated by the prosecutors in the matter.
Earlier in December, the police in Ekiti State arrested Farotimi at his Lagos office and bundled him to Ekiti State for prosecution.
The police arraigned the author for publishing a book, ‘Nigeria and its Criminal Justice System’ where he alleged that nonagenarian legal icon Afe Babalola corrupted the judiciary and procured a revised judgment in the Supreme Court.
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