The Nigeria Police Force has asked Destiny Ekhorutomuen, a TikToker accused of cyberbullying and cyberstalking, to provide four sureties with assets worth N2 billion as his administrative bail condition.
Lawyers described the bail conditions as “outrageous” on Saturday.
Omoyele Sowore, the 2023 presidential candidate of the African Action Congress (AAC), shared the administrative bail documents on X. The police had accused Ekhorutomuen of sharing ‘false information’ and kept him in detention.
See the ridiculous administrative bail terms given by @PoliceNG regarding the TikToker, Destiny Ekhorutomwen, so that they could keep him detained over the non-existent “fake news” charge that led to his arrest and illegal detention. @Policeng must release Destiny without delay. pic.twitter.com/8RpIxMFi4f— Omoyele Sowore (@YeleSowore) January 11, 2025
Sowore described the bail conditions as “ridiculous”.
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According to a statement shared on X by Force Public Relations Officer Muyiwa Adejobi on Wednesday, Ekhorutomuen was arrested by the police in the Uhunmwonde Local Government Area of Edo State.
The police claimed that the suspect “allegedly created and operated multiple social media accounts to disseminate false and inciting content aimed at provoking the public against the Nigeria Police”.
In the administrative bail sheet, the Ekhorutomuen’s alleged offences were ‘cyberbullying’ and ‘cyberstalking’. The terms of the bail read that he must provide two sureties who are Federal Government workers on the Level 16 cadre who have landed properties in Abuja worth N500 million each and also provide some necessary documents of the proper and proof of their job appointments.
The second condition stated that Ekhorutomuen must provide two businessmen whose businesses are registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), both must have landed properties in Abuja worth N500 million each and must provide their proof of business ownership and the properties.
‘Whenever the Police Give This Kind of Bail Condition, they Don’t Want To Release the Person’
FIJ spoke with two lawyers for comments on these bail conditions. They both found it unreasonable.
“That administrative bail condition is outrageous,” Kelechukwu Uzoka, one of the lawyers, said.
“Even when he gets all these things, they would still delay him. The police know what they are doing, when they don’t want you out, they just give you something like this.”
Uzoka explained that the bail would have been fair for a capital offence.
Human rights lawyer Ridwan Oke said that the bail only showed that the Police had no interest in releasing the suspect.
“Whenever police give this kind of condition, it is because they don’t want to release the person or they expect the person to negotiate or yield to the plans that they have,” Oke said.
“The bail conditions are too stringent. Even the court would not demand for this kind of condition.”
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In 2024, when a similar bail condition was dished out by the court to Isaac Bristol, FIJ analysed the feasibility of a Level 16 cadre civil servant being able to afford N500 million.
In the analysis, FIJ showed that if a civil servant starts their career with a bachelor’s degree at Level 8 and gets promoted promptly, they can only afford to save up about N96 million at the end of their years in service. So the civil servant owning a landed property worth N500 million is far-fetched.
FIJ also looked at the probability of a Level 17 civil servant being able to acquire a N500 million property. In the 35-maximum-year career, they would only have accumulated N217.5 million altogether.
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