King’s College London has informed Peoples Gazette that the institution was assessing its ties to major donor, Afe Babalola, a Nigerian senior lawyer who has been castigated on social media for deploying the police to brutalise and arrest fellow lawyer Dele Farotimi over a civil defamation charge.

Mr Babalola, 93, donated £10 million to King’s College London in May 2023 to advance human rights and education for African students abroad.

At issue was that Mr Farotimi allegedly defamed the senior lawyer and accused him of compromising the judiciary in his book —-now listed among Amazon’s bestsellers since the news of the author’s incarceration dominated headlines on Tuesday. 

Mr Babalola asked the police to covertly transfer Mr Farotimi from Lagos down to Ado-Ekiti his turf where he is deemed to wield significant influence, given he has thousands on his payroll with October 19 designated Afe Babalola Day. 

The covert nature of Mr Farotimi’s brutalisation, arrest and detention —which many citizens likened to abduction— have sparked nationwide outrage with the majority deriding the senior lawyer as an oppressor abusing his influence on ordinary citizens. 

Citizens censured Mr Babalola as one who ought to know better in handling civil allegations given his extensive background in law and decades of practice in the profession.

When asked whether Mr Babalola’s actions aligned with King’s College values, the institution told The Gazette it was assessing the situation and deciding on the best way to respond.

“We have your enquiry but our response, if we have any, will come later to this issue” an official said by telephone on Thursday afternoon.

Already, AAC presidential candidate Omoyele Sowore’s Take-It-Back movement announced plans to stage demonstrations at King’s College London on December 10 and in select locations in Lagos and Abuja demanding the author’s release.

The 93-year-old has cut a reputation as one of the most notorious lawyers in Nigeria for decades, serving as personal counsel to dictators such as former military heads of state Ibrahim Babangida and Sani Abacha in the 1980s and 1990s, respectively. Although deceased, Mr Abacha’s multi-billion dollar loot has been discovered across several nations of the world including France and UK.

The senior lawyer felt insulted after Mr Farotimi accused him of compromising “the Supreme Court and the remaining semblance of integrity it might have had.” 

The author further described the nonagenarian as a senior lawyer who “got that (Supreme) court to swim in the sewer of corruption and shameful self-abnegation.”

The book, published in July 2024, buttressed a longstanding public suspicion that Mr Babalola was among those befouling the Nigerian judicial system by corrupting judges with cash and material bribes to influence judges from lower courts to the Supreme Court. 

Despite its release in July, the book saw low sales until Tuesday when Mr Babalola deployed security officers to arrest its author.

Between Tuesday and Thursday, the book sold out in many Nigerian bookstores such as Tinu-Ade Bookshop in Ibadan and VIC Bookstore in Abuja as Nigerians trooped to purchase it.

Mr Farotimi’s controversial arrest has made the book a bestseller on Amazon, where Nigerians — curious to read the damning pages that triggered the nonagenarian’s aggressive actions —besieged the website with orders.

The author was on Wednesday charged with 16-count charge of defamation but the judge adjourned the matter till December 10 for further hearing.

Mr Farotimi was to be remanded in court till his next appearance but citizens have continued to lash out at Mr Babalola and accuse him of using the police and Ekiti judiciary as tools to nurse his vendetta.