News

[OPINION]Farotimi: A Trial Of The Supreme Court

Published

7 months ago

December 9, 2024

By Lasisi Olagunju

Adeola was a destitute woman with neither a surname nor a known relative who died at 1:15 p.m. on Friday, 29 June, 1888 at the Colonial Hospital in Lagos. She was buried at 4 p.m. the following day at Ereko Cemetery, Lagos. The manner of her death on Friday and burial on Saturday was to soon put the entire colonial establishment from Lagos to London on ‘trial’. A police officer had, some days earlier, found the woman “huddled up in an Ereko market shed, utterly helpless and in a ‘bad state of health.’”

Her story: She was just Adeola – no other name. She had no living person she could remember as a relation. About 30 years earlier (1858), she had been bought as a slave at Ikorodu market by a man from Beshe (Ibese?) who later converted her to a ‘wife.’ She had a child for the man but life soon happened to her in more devastating details. One after the other, the ‘husband’ died, the child died too. She became lonely and alone, ill and terribly diseased. Her case became like the sentry of Apomu who lost his divination nuts to thieves, had his wife snatched, and, in horror, watched his last item of survival taken by a bad dog that escaped and slipped into a deep well. “It is time to leave this town!” the man cried.

Utterly broken Adeola left Beshe for Lagos in search of hope and cure for everything that ailed her. She arrived in Lagos on 4 June, 1888. It was because she knew nobody and had no one in Lagos that she found ‘home’ in that market shed where the police officer found her. With that police officer, favour appeared to have found her as she was moved to the Colonial Hospital and was admitted as a patient. If she thought her prayer answered at that point she was wrong. Her story changed on 20 June, 1888 when the senior of the two Oyinbo doctors at the hospital wrote on her treatment sheet: DNI (Discharged, Not Improved). The doctor said she was an “incurable” and “no good could be done for her by treatment” and got her removed from the hospital. And “like a log of wood”, she was taken out of the facility on a stretcher taken far away from the hospital, and “pitched out of the stretcher” like dirt and left to die in the bush.

A man and his carpenter saw everything from the top of a house they were reroofing. They reported what they saw to the authorities who intervened and ordered the woman to return to the hospital by 5 p.m. the following day, 21 June. Adeola was reported dead on 29 June and buried by the evening of the following day. Then trouble started. The Lagos public got to know of everything that happened to the poor woman from the day she was first admitted to the hospital and the day she was reported dead and buried. It became a big human rights issue. Governor Moloney demanded explanations from the hospital and was not satisfied with what he was told. The matter went to a coroner who ordered the exhumation of the corpse. My historian wrote that “when the coffin was opened, the jury was struck by the observation that the body was found placed in a lateral decubitus. This was very unusual, and gave rise to the suspicion that the woman might have been encoffined before life petered out of her.” To be “encoffined before life petered out” of one is to be buried alive.

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The jury tried the case and indicted all the key hospital personnel involved, including the doctor who wrote DNI on her diet sheet. Then the coroner, friend and messmate of one of the doctors, stepped in and annulled the verdict of the jury and cleared all the indicted persons. That was done because the woman was a nobody who had nobody. Lagos as a city became enraged and a huge rally of 374 persons was held inside the Town Hall of Lagos on 9 July, 1888. It was from that meeting that the people of Lagos addressed an appeal petition to the Secretary of State for the Colonies in London who took over the case and ordered the governor of Lagos to implement the jury’s verdict and relieve the chief culprits of their duties. They were sacked. The pauper woman finally got justice. Her story is fully told in Adelola Adeloye’s ‘African Pioneers of Modern Medicine’ (1985); check page 60 through page 71. I got the story from that book; the various quotes I used are from its pages.

Scroll up again and read the Adeola case; the higher the appeal went, the better the reasoning, the surer the justice. Today, nothing in our courts is cast in law. The 1888 scandal happened well before Nigeria became a country. The Lagos public fought the injustice in Lagos for the nameless underdog. When Lagos compromised on truth and justice, the people took the case to London, fought and won in a very comprehensive way. The unfortunate woman in the story was the very definition of underdog. She had nothing; no full name; no address, no blood or bloodless relation. Everyone who fought for her did not know her from anywhere. She was a complete pauper with no material value to anyone. Yet, she got the people behind her and got justice. She was the underdog in the contest for space in the Colonial Hospital. She lost the battle of life but won the war of justice. She had her day, even after she died.

Americans have a day dedicated to almost everything. The third Friday in December of every year is their National Underdog Day. They’ve celebrated their underdog Fridays since 1976. The next one holds on 20 December, 2024. And, if you are a Nigerian, I am sure you’ve heard or come across ‘underdog’ more than once in the last one week. If you haven’t, it means you’ve not been following the war between Chief Afe Babalola, SAN and firebrand lawyer, Dele Farotimi. One, a senior advocate; the other, a subaltern in legal practice. Like in all contests, figures of speech have been flying like Saddam Hussein’s Scud missiles and George H. W. Bush’s Patriots. I heard the junior lawyer being called an underdog, the big man the top dog. I’ve also come across the expression: every underdog would have their day.

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Nigerians are bitterly divided between Chief Afe Babalola and Dele Farotimi. Each side thinks it is right. I read some comments and commentaries and shuddered. The extreme positions being taken and the measures being canvassed remind one of the contents of Edward P. Cheyney’s 1913 article on ‘The Court of Star Chamber’ of 17th century England: “The law-officers of the crown were especially inclined to prosecute offenders against the dignity of judges or other persons connected with the courts. An angry litigant who in 1602 attempted to stab a lawyer who had spoken against him was brought before Star Chamber and sentenced to have his ears cut off and to be imprisoned for life. One man had his ears nailed to the pillory at Westminster for traducing Lord Chief Justice Popham; another was sent to the pillory for saying Lord Dyer was a corrupt judge, another for writing a letter to Coke charging him with chicanery in practice, still others for writing a letter to the Mayor of Wallingford charging him with injustice, and for speaking disrespectfully to the Lord Mayor of London in the wrestling place at Clerkenwell…” The pillory in that piece was a wooden device for displaying and shaming convicts. It was known in Anglo-Saxon times as “catch-neck”, the French called it the pillorie. If you were sentenced to the pillory, your punishment included being abused by ecstatic members of the public and being pelted with filth, including rotten eggs. We’ve seen much of that in the last one week.

I have not read Farotimi’s book but I listened to some of his online appearances on this matter. His words are extreme just as the reaction of Afe Babalola to them. And, while I was wondering if a journalist like me should be read saying anything on this matter because it is already in court, subjudice, I watched Chief Babalola’s lawyers waiving aside that rule and addressing a press conference in Ado Ekiti on Friday. They took the top lawyer’s case before the court of public opinion. I am not blaming them; we live in a constantly changing world in which the Internet is the super jury. The landscape has changed forever. Babalola’s lawyers said Farotimi was angered because he lost his client’s case to their chief’s client before the Supreme Court in 2013. That was eleven years ago! Lawyers must have very long memories – like elephants – for them to have sustained a war this long.

And, it is from Chief Babalola’s case, as presented by his lawyers at the press conference, that I picked my item of interest – how the Supreme Court did this work and created this war. From what I read, it would appear that the Supreme Court was the edá rat that sparked the blaze which our firefighters are dealing with. “You will recall that 254 hectares (of land) were sold to the Gbadamosi Eletu family. However, instead of the 254 hectares, Honourable Justice Kumai Bayang Aka’ahs, JSC, who wrote the lead judgment, recorded 10 hectares in error,” Chief Babalola’s lawyer told the media. Now, listen. Nigeria’s topmost court wrote “ten hectares” when it should have written “254 hectares” and delivered it as its judgment in that contentious land case on 13 July, 2013. I read that and got confused. Figures 10 and 254 neither sound alike nor do they compare in values. So, where did the error come from? The Supreme Court is not a one-man tribunal. There were at least four other justices on that panel. Not one of them saw the mistake of their leading colleague; they all endorsed the error, lock, stock and barrel. The court later corrected this on 18 March, 2014 – that was eight months after the judgment. It blamed the discrepancy on what our law calls “clerical error.” Then this Farotimi-Babalola war started, assailing reputations and curtailing freedoms.

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We are ruling our world in manners that are at variance with how we met it. The British who created this country worked better in the administration of justice. I wrote earlier that in the Adeola scandal case above, the higher the appeal went, the better the reasoning, the surer the justice. Even in places where sharia ruled, the British encouraged discipline, diligence and competence. In Ilorin, an Alkali was dismissed in 1912 “because he could neither read nor write Arabic.” In the same Ilorin, the colonial government removed Chief Alkali Mallam Salihu sometime in the 1930s and replaced him with Mallam Muhammad Dan Begori (Belgore) because inquiry showed that he had been “extremely negligent in his supervision of the clerical work of his subordinates.” H. O. Danmole’s ‘The Alkali Court in Ilorin Emirate during Colonial Rule’ published in the Trans-African Journal of History (1989) contains those details, including the quotes.

Now, you would want to ask: The justices who professed the 10-hectare-for-254-hectare error at our Supreme Court in 2013, where are they today and what were the consequences of their mistake which now proves costlier than they could ever have imagined? The man who wrote the error retired in December 2019. How does he feel hearing all these about his error? The others who concurred with him, what do they feel? The Supreme Court itself, in the name of which those lords of the law acted, is it proud of what is happening? The criminal cases that branched out of their “clerical error” and filed last week, if they eventually go up to the Supreme Court, how is the court going to sit on them? The Body of Benchers, if a student of the Nigeria Law School wrote ten hectares where he was supposed to write 254 hectares, would they reward such a student with a call to the Nigerian Bar?

While I waste my time asking those questions, the battle between the forces of Chief Afe Babalola and those of Dele Farotimi rages on. And, it is not one between David and Goliath. No. Both are losing at the same time. They are both underdogs being tried in two parallel courts – one at the law court; the other at the court of public opinion. Unfortunately, both are not doing fine at all, but they are unyielding. I pity the two sides. They are pitched in a no-win duel while the rats who sparked the fight enjoy their suya, sip their coke, and pick their teeth. In the play, ‘Topdog/Underdog’ by American playwright, Suzan-Lori Parks, two brothers lose everything they fight over – woman, inheritance, everything. “Screaming in agony” is how a critic describes the cries of one while the other is too dead to hear his brother’s too-late regrets.

News

Congress Newspaper @4: X-Raying The Evolution Of Media In Ijaw Nation

Published

11 hours ago

July 11, 2025

Editor

By Joseph Kanjo

When Congress Newspaper/Online TV was launched four years ago, profit wasn’t the priority. “We weren’t looking at making money,” said Comrade Austin Ozobo, Managing Director of Congress Newspaper and a notable rights activist.

“I was in government as a Senior Special Assistant (SSA), and the salary wasn’t much. But I needed a platform where my voice—and the voices of like-minded individuals, especially my people—could be heard. So, I floated it. But today, things have changed. The profits are coming naturally,” he added.

These remarks came during my phone conversation with Comrade Ozobo, just days ahead of Congress Newspaper’s fourth anniversary celebration on July 10, 2025.

A well-known advocate for the rights of the Ijaw people and president of the Ijaw People’s Development Initiative (IPDI), Ozobo emphasized that his primary motivation was to amplify marginalized voices—especially those of his people. He reflected a sentiment similar to that of British musician and activist Peter Gabriel, who once said, “Those of us who have the eyes and ears of the media have a responsibility to amplify the voices of the voiceless.”

Fifteen years ago, it would have been difficult to count more than a handful of media outlets—whether big or small—owned or managed by individuals Ijaw from the Ijaw extraction.

Despite the many challenges faced by the Ijaw people, particularly due to the complex terrain they inhabit, their voices were largely absent from national conversations.

But today, that narrative has changed—thanks in part to the rise of online media. Now, there are numerous media outlets owned and managed by Ijaw sons and daughters, both in digital and print formats.

These platforms—each with its own mission and vision—nonetheless share a common thread: they give a voice to the people of the creeks, from whose experiences they often draw inspiration.

Some notable Ijaw-owned indigenous media platforms include:
GbaramatuVoice, Ijaw Voice, Ijaw Heritage TV, Arogbe Ibe Reporters, Iduwini Voice, Ogulagha Vanguards, and Egbema Voice.

In addition, several media outlets with broader or foreign-sounding names are also run by Ijaw professionals, including:
Info Daily, The Liberator, Coastal Times, Penglobal, Focal Point Reports, Dailynews Report, Waffi TV, Niger Delta Mirror, Niger Delta Herald, Daily Watch, and Mangrovepen.

Congress Newspaper/TV, though relatively new, has firmly established itself among these platforms as a consistent voice advocating for the Ijaw cause and broader Niger Delta interests.

Some may argue that media organizations should be neutral and unbiased. While this principle remains fundamental to ethical journalism, one cannot ignore the impact of ownership. Around the world, media ownership often shapes editorial direction, intentionally or not.

During his welcome address at the fourth anniversary celebration, Comrade Ozobo reiterated the newspaper’s founding vision: to provide not just information, but empowerment for Niger Delta communities.

“Our mission has always been to champion the voices that often go unheard and to shine a light on the issues that matter most to our people,” he said.

“We believe in the power of ethical journalism, and we remain committed to being a steadfast voice for justice, equity, and truth.”

Ozobo’s words speak to a broader truth: in media, ownership matters. And when that ownership is rooted in community-driven passion and purpose—as it is with Congress Newspaper—it becomes a powerful vehicle for social change.

As Congress Newspaper marks its fourth year, it stands not just as a media outlet, but as a movement—one that continues to reshape the media landscape in the Ijaw nation and beyond.

Joseph Ebi Kanjo is a practising journalist and Managing Editor of INFO DAILY.
editor@infodailyng.com

News

Supreme Court: Jubilant Supporters Stunned, Locked Out Of Edo Govt House [PHOTOS]

Published

16 hours ago

July 11, 2025

Editor

Jubilant supporters of Governor Monday Okpebholo Edo State, were on Friday disappointed as they were locked out from the Edo State Government House, Benin City.

The order not to allow anyone to access the government house was reportedly from an order from above.

The supporters, which included market women and members of the All Progressives Congress (APC), had gathered at the Benin Airport about 7am, to give the governor a rousing welcome.

The gathering followed Okpebholo’s triumph at the 2024 governorship election legal dispute at the Supreme Court in the nation’s capital, Abuja.

Okpebholo, whose aircraft touched down at the Benin Airport at about 12.40pm was welcomed by the supporters amid jubilation.

The supporters, many of whom were not mobile, proceeded on foot in a road procession with governor Okpebholo’s motorcades- chanting solidarity songs.

The procession, which lasted for about an hour, terminated at the Edo State Government House where the supporters were informed by security operatives that only Very Important Personalities (VIPs) would be allowed into the government house for refreshments.

The bewildered supporters took turns to lament the development, with many raining insults on the authorities.

One of the supporters who identified herself as Mrs. Ebosele Omogiate said: “In the worst moments of ex-governor Godwin Obaseki, supporters and members were not shabbily treated like this.

“They have won now and have decided to build a wall around themselves,” she added.

“I left my house before 7am for the airport and stood under the sun for hours before the arrival of the governor.

“We engaged on a road show with him to the government house, only for us to be shut out. This treatment melted on us is unfair,” another supporter added.

Earlier, addressing the crowd, Governor Okpebholo thanked God for his victory at the Supreme Court.

He promised that in the next two years, Edo people will know that they have a governor.

News

OPINION: BAT Rejects Trump’s Amazing Offer

Published

21 hours ago

July 11, 2025

Editor

Tunde Odesola

The presidential convoy spread out on the Third Mainland Bridge like a cloud of bats on seasonal migration. Sirens screamed. Lights flashed. The convoy of vehicles unfolds like the hail of light produced when the welder’s electrode kisses a metal, shraaaah! shraaaah! E plenty like iná wédà to fóká síbè.

As an insect enthusiast with particular love for beekeeping (cockroaches and bedbugs not included, please), I know that bees, ants and wasps have no kings, but queens, who guard-bees protect with their lives. However, termites have kings and queens, both of whom soldier termites protect with their last blood.

Be they bees, ants, wasps or termites, I love watching the life of cooperation, protection, order and hard work among insects. I love their guards’ provision of security for all and sundry, unlike the guards in this presidential convoy, whose only duty is the protection of the President, his family and bootlickers.

Measuring 11.8 kilometres, the Third Mainland Bridge, a massive masterpiece of concrete and steel work stretching over the Lagos Lagoon, was started in 1975 by the General Yakubu Gowon military administration, and continued by General Murtala Mohammed’s six-month government, before President Shehu Shagari stepped into the picture and did his bit. However, it was General Ibrahim Babangida who took credit for the bridge construction because he ensured its completion in 1990.

If the charismatic Babangida didn’t annul the June 12, 1993 presidential election won by Chief MKO Abiola, he almost certainly would have been preferred by Nigerians to shed his military khaki for the agbada of politics, instead of the less gifted and dour General Muhammadu Buhari, who later got the presidency on fake promises.

Regrettably, Babangida apparently lost political goodwill, honour, peace of mind and two terms of civilian presidency to the June 12 annulment. Little did Nigerians know that the official name of the Third Mainland Bridge is Ibrahim Babangida Bridge, but nobody remembers that; people only remember the abortion of June 12. The things men do, live with them.

It was on this Ibrahim Babangida Bridge that the presidential convoy set out en route to the airport. Jesu! Not even the president of the richest and most powerful nation on earth, Donald Trump, has such a long motorcade. From my vantage point, I counted the number of vehicles in the convoy. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 15, 20, 30, 40…Ha! Kilode? Is the president japaing? Probably to make counting difficult, the outriders zigzagged and crisscrossed. So, I stopped at 40-something.

But in the middle of the armoured pack, I saw three Rolls-Royce Phantoms, three Cadillac Escalades, three Mercedes-Benzes, three Cybertrucks and three state-of-the-art buses. None of the cars in the convoy was assembled in Nigeria, despite the government’s avowed propaganda about patronising Made-in-Nigeria goods; not even the wash towels used for cleaning the vehicles were made in Nigeria, nor the foot mats.

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Everywhere was on lockdown: air, land and sea – forcing the sun to hide behind the clouds, and birds vacated the air while the poor man’s movement was put on hold by those he voted for. Only the convoy moved. I yawned inside a Lagos BRT vehicle, wondering why the big men’s movement should stop the movement of citizens on the opposite side of the bridge.

This was when the window of one of the three buses opened, and I glimpsed Nigeria’s most recognisable cap, with its trademark chain symbol, the chain of oppression.

“Haa! Bàba Bàbá ni o! Olowo Eko ni ooo!” a youngster hawking alcoholic drinks and bottled water in traffic shrieked. “It’s the BAT, King BAT, the Lord of Lagos!” a hawker of plantain chips screamed, jumping, “I saw him! I saw him! Baba smiled and waved at me! Baba waved at me! The Asiwaju of the Universe waved at me!” A cripple, who begs in traffic, hissed and shook his head, “Una dey praise those who chain una? Ok o, make una kontiniu, una never see anything.”

The heat in the BRT was stifling, and sweat poured from skin pores. Thoughts of Nigeria flooded my mind. Since I was born and now that I am getting old, I have never seen Nigeria changeth (for good).

Inside the armoured bus, seated at the feet of the Lord of Lagos were members of his innermost circle – Noisome Winke, IdanFemi Gbabiamila, Baba Chief AdeBC, Jide-Olu, and Natasha coveter, Chief Dogswill Akpabi.

In the fleeting moment when the Lord of Lagos let down his window, I saw his gaze travel beyond the hailing roadside traders, resting on the 13-storey Senate Building of the University of Lagos, across the lagoon. I saw desire lit up in his eyes. “My name will suit the university more than its current name. What is UNILAG? Why not UNIBAT?

Winke, the ultimate bootlicker and mind reader, will not miss the opportunity to massage the ego of the Lord of Lagos. Though he cleared his throat, the frog in it would not keep silent. “Jide-Olu, don’t you think you should name UNILAG and this world’s best bridge after our personal Lord and Saviour?” Jide-Olu smiled, “No, Winke. UNILAG and the Third Mainland Bridge do not belong to the state. They belong to the centre, which is headed by our Lord and Saviour.”

Sounding more like a masquerader battling stomach upset during a market show, Winke said, “Uhmm, it doesn’t matter, you can start the call from your end – that our leader deserves the university to be renamed after him. Or does he not?” Jide-Olu, “Why not, if not? In fact, I suggest we should call on the National Assembly to name all federal universities and polytechnics after our leader. That way, the nation will save money.”

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Lord of Lagos: What do you think about these suggestions, Natasha, oh sorry, I mean, Akpabi?

Akpabi: (Smiles like a child eating ice cream, his special Ibibio accent booming loud and clear) Ha, you are our òká o. And, as our òká, iris not too much if we name Nigeria after you, I swear. Nigerians cannot reyect it. On Monday, the yoint session will rook at how we are going to do it, so that the opposition and Nigeria Rabour Congress will not begin their wahala.”

Lord of Lagos: Baba AdeBC, what do you think?

Baba AdeBC: Well, it’s not a bad idea for Nigeria to show gratefulness to her messiah and defender. I think it’s a good idea. (Baba AdeBC beams his trademark smile, which is as lifeless as the beach foam left behind on the shore by the roaring ocean)

Idanfemi: Your Excellency, you have a phone call from the US President, sir.

Lord of Lagos: Oh, connect me, Idanfemi.

Trump: How’re you doing, BAT?

Lord of Lagos: I’m doing great, Donald. Thank you. How’re you and your wonderful family?

Trump: We’re fine, and thanks for asking. Hey BAT, can I pick your brain real quick?

Lord of Lagos: Ha! No oooo; leave my brain alone o. Please, don’t pick it. My brain is old already. Ma se erekere iwo arakunrin yi. When you know you need Nigerian brains, why did you restrict your visa to three-month single entry? If you want millions of Nigerian brains, you open your borders for 24 hours and see.

Trump: No, you’re getting me wrong. I don’t mean to pick your brain literally, I mean to ask for your knowledge and advice on some issues.

Lord of Lagos: Oh, I see. Fear don catch me. I don’t want anything to touch this my political brain o.

Trump: Exactly what I’m saying! That your political brain is what I want to pick. I just saw your convoy on CNN! How do you afford such a large convoy and retinue of sycophants?

Lord of Lagos: That’s not for me to worry. The state takes care of that.

Trump: OMG! You mean the state bears the brunt of all that drain on taxpayers’ money? Are you kidding me!? I think it’s better to be president of your shithole than be president of America, seriously.

Lord of Lagos: You have come with this shithole thing again, Donald? You’re not serious.

Trump: Can you believe that as president, I pay for the food my family and I eat, I pay for drinks and clothes. I pay for private parties when I host them, I pay for gifts when I buy them for foreign dignitaries, I cover my vacation accommodations, and I pay for private events hosted outside the White House. Additionally, I pay for general household items like toilet paper, toothpaste, and garbage bags. Do you know that Bill Clinton incurred $16 million in debt for legal and personal investigation fees, which he paid over time?

Lord of Lagos: (Bursts into laughter) And you say you’re prezdent? Hahahahah! You’re prezdent indeed. Hahahaha! Yes, you’re the most powerful prezdent on earth, but are you the most indulged? Certainly, no! You’re just an administrative paper prezdent, I’m the ultimate ruler.

Trump: I wish we could trade places.

Lord of Lagos: Ha, trade places ke? No ooo! Let me be prezdent of this shithole, you continue to be prezdent of your superpower country. Stay with your democracy. I’ll stay with my empire. I don’t want to be Prezdent of America. I don’t wan die in prison, please.

Email: tundeodes2003@yahoo.com

Facebook: @Tunde Odesola

X: @Tunde_Odesolap