- Police have reportedly rearrested an Abuja-based political activist, Deji Adeyanju
- His associate, Ariyo-Dare Atoye, was said to have confirmed this on Thursday, December 13
- Bala Ciroma, the commissioner of police in Abuja, however, said he was not aware that Adeyanju was arrested again and was being held at his office
Emerging reports revealed that a political activist, Deji Adeyanju, has again been detained by the police.
Premium Times reports that Adeyanju's associates confirmed the arrest from Ariyo-Dare Atoye, a long-time friend of Adeyanju, who said the political activist was arrested after 3:00 p.m. on Thursday, December 13.
Legit.ng gathered that the police are demanding to establish the conclusion of a murder trial involving Adeyanju in the mid and late 2000s.
He said: “They are holding him at the Inspector-General of Police Monitoring Unit over a murder case from his university days.
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“Even though it is true that he was arrested and charged for murder when he was a student of Bayero University Kano, we are very sure that he was discharged and acquitted in the case."
Adeyanju was at the unit, which was specially established to tackle specific serious crimes ranging from kidnapping to armed robbery, to retrieve the last of his three mobile telephone devices which the police seized from him when he was first arrested on November 28.
Atoye, however, said on Thursday night, December 13, that he had contacted lawyers on behalf of Adeyanju.
“The police said he jumped bail in 2005 and are asking for him to provide the certified true copy of the case in order to establish that he was indeed discharged. We find this extremely embarrassing for our country, but we would try and get the copies tomorrow.”
Adeyanju spent four years in prison between 2005 and 2009 after he was arrested with three others on murder charges while a student of Bayero University.
Festus Keyamo, a rights lawyer and current campaign spokesperson for President Muhammadu Buhari, defended Adeyanju and the three others.
One of the other three was Musa Daura, said to be a relative of Mamman Daura, President Muhammadu Buhari’s nephew.
“I represented Deji Adeyanju in the matter from 2005 until 2009, and I can tell you categorically that he was not only discharged but also acquitted,” Keyamo told Premium Times in a telephone call.
Keyamo said he represented Adeyanju on a pro-bono (free) basis at the time, buoyed largely by his longstanding interest in helping students from legal dilemma.
“Immediately I heard he was a student, I picked up the case and by the grace of God we won it and he was discharged and acquitted,” Keyamo emphasised.
Adeyanju had asked that Keyamo be contacted to verify his statement that the senior lawyer represented him in the case for corroboration.
“I am giving you this information because you told me he had said you should call to verify, I otherwise would never have done it because it falls under the lawyer and client privilege,” Keyamo said.
Bala Ciroma, the police commissioner in Abuja, told the medium on Thursday night, December 13, he was not aware that Adeyanju had been arrested again and was being held at his office.
Adebayo Raphael, one of the activists in ConcernedNigerians, an advocacy group founded by Mr Adeyanju, said the plot was to hold his colleague in prison for a long time.
He said: “What they are plotting to do is to take him to Kano and manipulate a judge there to have have him re-arraigned on murder charges, for which he probably would not be granted bail. “It is an anti-democratic and evil plot but one which we would ensure is defeated.”
Adeyanju spent eight nights in prison after being arrested on November 28 while leading a protest against alleged bias by security chiefs in the build up to the general elections.
The police said his campaign was defamatory, and seized the arrest to exhume a flurry of social media posts of Mr Adeyanju’s that were deemed defamatory.
Adeyanju was immediately arraigned in the afternoon of November 28 at the Chief Magistrate’s Court in Karshi, Abuja.
Although he was granted bail on the same day, he was unable to meet the conditions on the spot, and was taken to the federal prisons in Keffi, where he remained until December 6.
On December 3, he fulfilled the bail conditions on the police charges, and was released from prison.
However, immediately after his release, the police, who had laid in wait near the prison for Adeyanju to emerge, re-arrested him again, saying there was a fresh petition from Chief of Army Staff Tukur Buratai.
Buratai’s allegations against Adeyanju were similar to those already filed by the police, but that did not stop them from arraigning him before another magistrate’s court in Wuse Zone 2, Abuja, on December 4.
He was initially remanded for two days on Buratai’s charges, but secured a bail on December 6. He met the conditions on the stop and was allowed to go home for the first time in eight nights.
Following his release on December 6, Adeyanju went days without his mobile telephones. The police released two out of the three telephones seized from him after about four days, Atoye said.
READ ALSO: Why I lost speakership position to Tambuwal in 2011 - Mulikat Adeola
Meanwhile, Legit.ng had previously reported that the officers of the Nigeria police arrested activist and convener of the Concerned Nigerians, Deji Adeyanju, for leading a protest tagged police are not politicians, Save Our Democracy in Abuja.
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