FROM PRISON, DEJI WISHES NIGERIANS MERRY CHRISTMAS

FROM PRISON, DEJI WISHES NIGERIANS MERRY CHRISTMAS

Deji Adeyanju, a political activist, who is under police prosecution, has told Nigerians he is in good spirit.

Anaedoonline learnt that one of his associates and a social critic, Theophilus Agada, was in Kano Central Prison to see the activist on Christmas Day.

“His message to Nigerians was that he is in good in spirit,” Mr. Agada said this on Tuesday night.

“Although he looks really emaciated, in all, he is doing fine.

“I met him playing football with the inmates,” he added.

Mr. Agada said he arrived at the prison at about 2:00 p.m. and spent some time with the activist before leaving.

Mr. Adeyanju has been in prison since November 28, 2018, when the police first arrested him as he led a protest to demand police neutrality ahead of the general elections in February.

President Muhammadu Buhari is seeking re-election, and Mr. Adeyanju and other members of his “ConcernedNigerians Group” said the police and other security agencies have become increasingly partisan in recent months and may ultimately work to ensure the president returns to office.

The police denied all allegations of bias but did not stop there. They arrested Mr. Adeyanju during the protest outside police headquarters in Abuja, alongside two others.

The two others were later released following a bail granted by a magistrate. The magistrate also extended bail to Mr. Adeyanju, and the activist was briefly set free on December 3.

Anaedoonline gathered that Mr. Adeyanju was tried for murder charges by Kano State government between 2005 and 2009, but he was discharged and acquitted by the Kano State High Court which found that the activist was not in Kano when the murder occurred in January 2005.

Anaedoonline also learnt that Mr. Adeyanju’s associates said the police asked them to provide evidence that the activist was discharged and acquitted, but refused to release him even after this was provided.

Disclosure by Festus Keyamo, a rights activist who now heads communications strategy for Mr Buhari’s reelection campaign, that he was Mr Adeyanju’s defence attorney in the case and his client was discharged and acquitted also did little to persuade the police to free the activist.

The police moved Mr Adeyanju to Kano on December 18, five days after holding him in Abuja without trial.

READ ALSO: PDP RAISES ALARM OVER “PLOT” TO ARREST NASS MEMBERS

He was arraigned before a Chief Magistrate’s Court in Kano on December 21, but the court remanded him in prison until February 2019, despite pleading a lack of jurisdiction to hear the case.

The magistrate’s decision came as the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory in Abuja was ordering the immediate release of Mr Adeyanju in a fundamental rights enforcement suit filed by his associates.

The police have declined to recognise the decision of the superior court, indicating that Mr Adeyanju might be in custody for as long as the lower court in Kano had decided.