Activist, Deji Adeyanju Re-Arrested In Abuja

The police in Abuja have detained Deji Adeyanju again, his associates have told PREMIUM TIMES.

A
message from Ariyo-Dare Atoye, a long-time friend of Mr Adeyanju, 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., 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.