Prince Bob Njemanze Reacts To Arrest Of Dele Farotimi

By Chinedu Max Egere   

The recent arrest of Dele Farotimi has been making the headlines.

Dele Farotimi, a human rights lawyer was arrested by the Nigerian police over allegations of defamation filed by Tony Elumelu, the chairman of the UBA group.

Dele Farotimi

According to reports, Dele Farotimi had honoured an invitation by the zone 2 Police command in Lagos where he was presented with a petition accusing him of defamation.

Aside finding the allegations as baseless, he was reported to address the claims in good faith.

Dele Farotimi’s arrest has sparked widespread criticisms with calls from many quarters for his release.

A respected elder statesman and a fiery public affairs analyst in Imo, Prince Bob Njemanze has made a statement reacting to the arrest of the human rights lawyer whom he described as a critique and an agitated academic to deal with.

Njemanze

Hear him: Once you get to Dele Farotimi’s page you get hooked.He is extremely reasonable and analytical.We compound issues when we arrest such positive unbiased minded people. It is like arresting Chidi Odinkelu or Dr Sam Amadi.These are people who deal with issues that touch the rudiments that are fundamental to the bane of our society.They are not dealing with corruption per se but what has necessitated or perpetrated corruption in our society’

Prince Bob Njemanze had recalled that Dele Farotimi said he would leave the country if Alhaji Ahmed Tinubu won the presidential election and that when he was asked why he never did,he made it clear that as far he was concerned,Tinubu did not win the election and that is why he is still in the country.

Prince Bob Njemanze went further describing Dele Farotimi as one who does not take a swipe on individuals but rather one who discusses the actions and how not to perpetuate fraud in the polity maintaining that his arrest is ill-advised.

The prince of the old royal dynasty of Owerre has insisted that ‘we should be able to draw lines between criticisms and a critique’ saying that nothing is wrong with being a critique so long as one would not smear the image of another and that so long as one has enough facts to sway the reasoning of the people towards his own thinking because nothing is good or bad but the thinking makes it so’.

The public affairs analyst advised the security agencies to have more important issues of fraud to deal with than hounding individuals that are trying to help clean up the society. He said ‘We should look towards areas where perpetrators of crimes are wining and dining with the powers that be and try to put a check to impunity and overzealousness.Please before Nigeria becomes a banana republic let us leave Dele Farotimi off the hook.

Except for playing to the gallery of the powers that be.