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By Chukwudi Nweje, Lagos
A Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Mr Adeyinka Olumide-Fusika, has urged Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) Mr Simon Asamber Lough, SAN, to heed his own advice and stop the media trial of detained Afro beat artiste, Seun Kuti.
Seun Kuti is being held by the police after he surrendered himself to the Lagos State Command after he was seen on video assaulting a police officer on the Third Mainland Bridge. Kuti has been remanded in the Kirikiri Correctional Centre by the court.
DCP Lough had taken to his Twitter handle to ask the defence team of Seun Kuti to “desist from engaging in media trial/defence of their client and allow the judicial process take its course.”
But reacting to the tweet, Fusika berated Lough for engaging in the same media trial tactics he warned against.
In a statement Thursday evening, Fusika noted, “My attention has been drawn to a tweeted public statement ascribed to you, which, inter alia, “appeals to the defence team of Mr Seun Kuti to desist from engaging in media trial/defence of their client and allow the judicial process take its course.”
“You are of course aware of the names and identities of those to whom your advice was directed. That being the case, you should have honoured your own advice against ‘media trial/defence’ by reaching out to them otherwise than through a tweet to the whole world.
“Your predilection is however understandable and forgiven considering that you are first and foremost a Deputy Commissioner of Police and therefore bound to obey the last order of your superiors in the Nigeria Police Force.”
Fusika noted that the police are in breach of the Administration of Criminal Justice (Amendment) Bill, 2021 signed into law in September 2021 by Lagos State Governor, Mr Babajide Sanwo-Olu, and which forbids the police from parading any suspect before the media.
He asked the police to obey the order of the Magistrate Court that directed the police to send the case file of Seun Kuti to the Lagos State Director of Public Prosecution for legal evaluation and possible charge and prosecution before a court of law rather than the ongoing continued parade before the media.
The statement read, “As as a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, the unethical implication of your exertion and conduct in court today would not have been lost on you. To your knowledge, the bail granted to Mr Kuti at the court session on Tuesday 16/5/2023 was not on the application of the Police or its legal team. It was on the oral application and at the instance of Mr Kuti’s legal team, having chanced upon the ex-parte attempt of the Police to keep Mr Kuti under Police detention for 20 more days as from said 16/5/2023. It should therefore have occurred to you that any application to vary the bail terms, including the term that his release on bail shall be effective after 24 hours from that date (which was what you went to court today to make and obtain) cannot be ex parte but on notice to Mr Kuti’s Defence team.
“In your elevated position as a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, you ought not to be caught in any scheme having the potential of making a mockery of the rule of law and exposing the Court administration of Justice to ridicule. Mr . Kuti will say no more on this for now.
“You have informed the public in your statement that ‘section 10(4) of Administration of Criminal Justice Law of Lagos State allows the taking of photographs of suspects arrested for identification and record purpose.’ However, apart from the fact that it was Mr Kuti that voluntarily took and submitted himself at your Lagos State Command, Ikeja on Monday, May 15, 2023, you omitted to also direct the public addresses of your statement to the Section of the Law you cited that authorised or permitted the Police (through Mr Hundeyin, its Lagos Polic Public Relations Officer (PPRO), who personally took the photographs) to circulate it to the media and the public at large. Or, are you by any chance denying that this was not what happened? Are you saying that it was Mr Kuti (and or his legal team) that took his photographs in police handcuffs and sent them to media houses and the public at large? As it is obvious that you either do not know or are pretending not to know, in September 2021, Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu, the Governor of Lagos, signed the Administration of Criminal Justice (Amendment) Bill, 2021 bill into law.
“Section 9(a) of the law states: ‘As from the commencement of this law, the police shall refrain from parading any suspect before the media’.
“Furthermore, according to you, the need for handcuffs was because Mr Kuti ‘has shown the tendency of violence … by attacking and slapping a Police Officer in uniform and even threatened his wife in the process’. Mrs. Kuti has instructed that you should be informed that she has never made any complaint to you as insinuated in your statement. I am also sure that the Police Commissioner to whom Mr Kuti reported and submitted himself did not inform you that he suffered any violence or threat of violence from Mr Kuti, Mr. Kuti submitted himself to the Police so that he can go answer in court the allegation of assaulting a policeman. It is the Police who, rather than taking this simple and straightforward step, have decided to create a circus and make a ‘national emergency’ of the matter.
“Your sweeping insinuation against Mr Kuti (which only a witness in court is entitled to testify to), using your title of Senior Advocate of Nigeria, belittles that Rank.
“Well, now that Mr Kuti has been put in manacles and taken on parade from one police station to another, and from one location to the other across Lagos State since Monday, May 15, 2023, when exactly is he going to be charged for, as you put it in your statement, ‘attacking and slapping a police officer in uniform’?
“Mr Seun Kuti is patiently waiting to be charged to court for the alleged offence so that he can offer his defence. That should not be too much for a suspect to expect. I do hope that you will use your position as a lawyer, and indeed a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, counselling the Police in this matter, to obey the order of the Magistrate Court to send the case file to the Lagos State Director of Public Prosecution for legal evaluation and possible charge and prosecution before a court of law.
“As you can see from this very example, the defence team of Seun Kuti has never engaged in media trial/defence of its client. Rather, the team only makes cautioning responses to statements and briefings from the Police to the public against Mr Kuti (at a time he is in police detention and unable to speak by his own mouth to the public.”
