A lawyer Tope Temokun has said that the detained human rights activist Dele Farotimi did not send former presidential candidate Peter Obi to beg senior advocate of Nigeria Afe Babalola.
Mr Farotimi is facing cybercrime and libel charges against Babalola in Ekiti for accusing him of bribing Supreme Court judges to get favourable judgements for his clients.
In an interview on a Channels Television programme Inside Sources with Laolu Akande on Sunday, Mr Temokun said he was with Farotimi on Saturday afternoon and had a conversation with him.
He said: “I visited Mr. Dele Farotimi in a correctional service in Ado-Ekiti, Ekiti State yesterday afternoon.
“The events of the recent days, the visit of Mr. Peter Obi, the (2023) presidential candidate of the Labour Party to Aare Afe Babalola, his visit to Mr. Dele Farotimi, created some lack of clarity. People are not so clear about some things. People are not clear about what is going on.
“It is on the basis of this that I had to visit him yesterday, and we sat together and had a good discussion.
“After Peter Obi left Ekiti, the news that filtered the town to the issue of the conditions for release, the issue of apology, the issue of whether Mr. Dele Farotimi is able to do this or that to come out.
“I told him (Farotimi): the reason why I am here is to confirm from you: ‘What do you think should be done? The visit of Mr Peter Obi to you in person and the subsequent visit to Aare Afe Babalola, what do you know about it? What is your message to Aare Afe Babalola? What is your message to the people outside? What is also your message to me as part of your legal team?’
“He (Farotimi) said if anybody who is very familiar with his antecedents, with his principles, with his philosophy over time should join anybody to believe that in a matter where he had written a book that he had published and that had been in circulation, that if anybody, somebody who has a brain should join others to believe that he has sent anybody to beg anybody, he said he will be so disappointed in that person.
“He told me categorically that even you Tope, if you join anybody to believe that I could beg anybody or that I have sent anybody to beg anybody, I will be so disappointed in you.”
