On March 23, 2026, a Lagos State High Court in Ikeja did more than bring a long-running criminal trial to an end. It exposed, by implication, the malice that gave birth to it. In clearing Ademola Adesina Ogunlana and Yinka Farounbi, and in bringing to a close the case against them and Mrs. Kappo, the court affirmed what many had known from the beginning: this was not justice at work, but persecution wearing the mask of law.

When I received the news, I wept.

They were not merely tears of joy. They were tears of depth, memory, and meaning. They were tears stirred by the triumph of truth and by the weight of all that these men endured in the defence of conscience, principle, and public integrity.

I was close to Baba Ogunlana. The last time we spoke deep into the night, this case occupied much of our conversation. He was not bitter. He was not afraid. He was not broken. He was unbowed and uncowed. The truth that the court has now affirmed was already settled in his conscience. He knew the case against him was contrived. He knew he had served the Bar and the nation faithfully. He knew why he was being targeted. And more importantly, he had already seen, with the eyes of vision, the certainty of his vindication.

His real offence was not criminality. It was refusal.

Like Mordecai in the biblical narrative, he refused to bow to men and interests that demanded submission at the expense of principle. For that, he became a target. Those who publicly wore the garments of activism, justice, and nation-building found common cause with the coercive powers of the state. The result was a prosecution that bore the appearance of legality but lacked the moral substance of justice.

That is why this judgment matters.

It is not only that names have now been cleared. It is that the ruling exposes the difference between law and justice, between accusation and truth, and between the use of institutions and their abuse. In Nigeria, these distinctions matter. We know too well that the machinery of the state can be weaponised. We know that institutions meant to protect liberty can be turned into instruments of harassment. We know that the judicial process itself can become part of the punishment.

Baba’s concern was never whether truth would stand. He knew it would. His concern was whether the judiciary would align itself with that truth. That concern was understandable in a country where impunity often struts about with official backing, and where state institutions are too often deployed against inconvenient voices.

It must be recalled that Baba Ogunlana and Mr. Farounbi were hounded by the EFCC, arrested, and detained. In pursuing this malevolent enterprise, even the Bar Centre, the institutional sanctuary of the Nigerian Bar Association, Ikeja Branch, was invaded. Meetings were disrupted. Arrests were made. The intention was not simply prosecution. It was intimidation. It was humiliation. It was political neutralisation.

Yet, in the midst of that persecution, Baba Ogunlana pressed on with what he saw as a rescue mission for the Nigerian Bar Association. He contested for the presidency of the Bar because he believed the NBA could be more than a professional body concerned with prestige and ceremony. He believed it could stand as a moral and civic force in national life, one capable of aligning with the struggle of ordinary Nigerians against social and political oppression.

That vision was threatening.

And the criminal case was weaponised against it.

His eventual disqualification may have been clothed in procedure, but its political meaning was plain. A movement was being checked. A candidacy was being undermined. A possibility was being blocked. What could not be defeated in open contest was targeted through institutional manipulation.

Now, with this judgment, truth has spoken in the public arena in a manner that history cannot ignore.

And what does that truth show?

First, truth has the capacity to outlive malice. Falsehood may travel quickly. Malice may gather allies. Institutions may be bent. But truth possesses endurance. It can be resisted, buried, and denied, but it does not cease to be. In its own time, it rises with vindicating force.

Second, truth vindicates its witnesses, not only in the external record, but first in the inward life. Baba Ogunlana and Yinka Farounbi did not leave this world as men abandoned by truth. They lived in the certainty of it. They saw it with the eyes of vision. They bore accusation in public, but they stood vindicated in conscience. What the court has now done is not to create that vindication, but to confirm openly what they had already embraced inwardly.

Third, truth recruits its own defenders. One of the striking features of this long struggle is that it did not die with the accused. Their comrades continued the battle. They stood firm because what bound them together was not convenience, but conviction. They were not merely defending friends. They were defending a truth embodied in lives they had come to trust.

Fourth, truth can bring white pap out of a dark pot and turn vindication into a lesson for national emancipation. Our judiciary, like many of our public institutions, has often given citizens cause for disappointment. Yet here, from within a flawed system, truth still found a voice. That does not cancel the reality of decay, but it does remind us that light can break out of darkness and that even damaged institutions can be made to answer to justice.

The lesson, therefore, goes beyond the vindication of Baba Ogunlana, Mr. Farounbi, and Mrs. Kappo. It points to the larger cause of national emancipation. It tells us that when a people generate enough moral energy, civic resolve, and collective pressure, systems that were never designed to serve them can still be compelled to bow. This is why the judgment matters beyond the courtroom: it is a sign that the struggle for the liberation of our people from political oppression and institutional abuse remains both necessary and possible.

Fifth, death is a weak quantity when it collides with truth. Though Baba Ogunlana and Mr. Farounbi are no longer physically with us, it is still right to speak of them as victorious even in death. Truth is stronger than mortality. What the enemy intended for their denigration has become an instrument of immortalisation. Their absence has not erased their witness; it has sealed it. Their vindication now stands as public testimony that death may interrupt a life, but it cannot defeat a truth-filled one.

This judgment should not be treated as a private victory alone. It is a public reminder that persecution clothed in procedure remains persecution. It reminds us that those who speak most loudly in the name of justice are not always its faithful servants. And it reminds us that truth does not need our timetable to prevail. It arrives in its own time, and when it does, it stands complete.

I wept because the ruling was right.

I wept because truth, once again, showed its character.

Not hurried.
Not absent.
Not defeated.

Only waiting for its moment.

To our departed leaders, Ademola Adesina Ogunlana and Yinka Farounbi, and to Mrs. Kappo, who remains among the living: thank you for standing for truth in a compromised time.

Your vindication was never in doubt.

What the court has now done is to acknowledge before men what truth had already established.

And your example remains.