According to Fabiyi, spokesperson for the Justice for Dele Farotimi Coalition, their work is aimed at supporting the coordination of efforts towards ensuring Farotimi gets justice.
A coalition of Nigerian activists and organizations, both within Nigeria and abroad, has formed a coalition to provide unified support for Dele Farotimi in his ongoing battle against corruption within the Nigerian judicial system.
Members of the coalition include Omoyele Sowore, a former presidential candidate of African Action Congress and Convener of Take It Back Movement, Rudolf Okonkwo, Professor Chidi Odinkalu, Barrister Deji Adeyanju and Dr Malcolm Fabiyi of Governance Advancement Initiative for Nigeria, GAIN.
According to Fabiyi, spokesperson for the Justice for Dele Farotimi Coalition, their work is aimed at supporting the coordination of efforts towards ensuring Farotimi gets justice.
“Everyone knows that the Nigerian judicial system is corrupt. The politicians say it. The people know it. Even judges have come out to decry the corruption within the system. In the polling that we do at GAIN, the judiciary and the police consistently rank at the top of Nigerian’s ratings of the most corrupt institutions in the country,” he said.
According to the coalition, it seems Farotimi’s offence is to have had the audacity to provide names and context to the corruption.
Fabiyi noted the irony that Farotimi’s treatment so far has further confirmed his allegations that the system is corrupt.
“How is a man jailed in Ekiti for not attending court proceedings that he received no notifications were taking place?” he asked.
“How does a man get charged for an offence of criminal libel that legal scholars like Professor Odinkalu tell us does not exist in Ekiti state law? And most egregious of all, how does a team of policemen from Ekiti travel past multiple states to arrest a citizen of Lagos state, within Lagos state?
“This is a train of illegalities mounted and layered upon one another, yet the person whose rights have been abused is the one in chains and in prison! This is real time confirmation of the allegations that Dele has made.”
The coalition announced that its work will be focused on three things which are as follows: first, the setting up of a Legal Defense Fund to ensure that Dele Farotimi will have the means and resources to robustly defend himself.
Secondly, the coalition will coordinate Global Action in support of Dele’s Cause.
Thirdly the coalition announced a new Whistleblowing Initiative aimed at encouraging insiders with knowledge about corruption within the judicial system especially as it pertains to Dele's assertions of judicial corruption against Chief Afe Babalola and some judicial officers, to provide such information.
According to Fabiyi, the coalition will provide a secure platform for information sharing and provide monetary incentives for the whistleblowers.
“For every act of corruption, there is a clerk who moves files, there is a court registrar that was asked to make corrupt administrative alterations. There are emails, letters, notes and text messages. There are bank workers who are aware of secret transfers. If the system thinks that by shutting down Dele Farotimi they have scared Nigerians into silence, they are mistaken. They will be unleashing a Pandora’s box of catastrophe on themselves,” a statement issued by the coalition said.
The coalition is scheduled to have an online meeting later on Tuesday at 7pm Nigerian time to which the general public is invited using the link https://bit.ly/Farotimi.
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