Men of the Nigerian Police in Abuja have re-arrested and detained political activist, Deji Adeyanju, his associates have told PREMIUM TIMES.
A message from Ariyo-Dare Atoye, a long-time friend of Mr Adeyanju, to the PREMIUM TIMES said the political activist was arrested after 3:00 p.m. on Thursday.
It was learnt that the police are demanding to establish the conclusion of a murder trial involving Mr Adeyanju in the mid and late 2000s.
“They are holding him at the Inspector-General of Police Monitoring Unit over a murder case from his university days,” Mr Atoye said.
“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,” Mr Atoye said.
Mr 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.
As of 9:30 p.m. on Thursday, Mr Atoye said he had contacted lawyers on behalf of Mr 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,” Mr Atoye added.
“We find this extremely embarrassing for our country, but we would try and get the copies tomorrow.”
Mr 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 Mr 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,” Mr Keyamo told PREMIUM TIMES by telephone Thursday night.
Mr Keyamo said he represented Mr 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,” Mr Keyamo emphasised.
