Global tech and retail giant Amazon has listed a Nigerian-themed book as its number one bestseller in global politics after its author was arrested on the orders of a controversial lawyer and businessman.
The demand for Mr Farotimi’s on global platforms like Amazon followed a similar rush to bookstores across Nigeria, where citizens were curious to learn its content. The global interest followed Mr Farotimi’s arrest on the orders of Afe Babalola, a 93-year-old senior Nigerian lawyer who corruption allegations have long dogged. Nigerian-themed rarely make Amazon’s bestselling chart, and Mr Farotimi’s book beat globally-acclaimed works like ‘Why Nations Fail’
Mr Farotimi, a lawyer based in Lagos, used the book to criticise corruption in the Nigerian judiciary and specifically namechecked Mr Babalola as one of the top offenders.
Mr Babalola “compromised the Supreme Court and the remaining semblance of integrity it might have had,” Mr Farotimi wrote while narrating a case in which the nonagenarian lawyer approached “the Supreme Court and got that 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 by corrupting judges with cash and material bribes to influence judges from lower courts to the Supreme Court.
The book saw low sales following its publication until Mr Farotimi was seized by armed policemen in Lagos, on Tuesday morning and subsequently transported to Ado Ekiti, about 300 kilometres northeast of the nation’s commercial capital, where Mr Babalola is best known as the largest employer of labour.
Peoplesmind
