Final year student arrested for creating Jonathan’s parody account says he spent 82 days in detention

Olusola Babatunde, a final year student, who was arrested and detained by the police for creating a parody account of former President, Goodluck Jonathan has regained freedom.

Babatunde, who was released on Tuesday, August 11, 2020, said he spent 82 days in detention and nearly contracted coronavirus.

Speaking with ThePunch after his release on Tuesday, the student said the police cramped him and scores of others in contravention of the COVID-19 guidelines.

He said, “There was no social distancing. I guess the people in the cells are exceptional. It is like COVID-19 doesn’t infect them and this is despite the fact that new suspects are brought in every day without testing.

“However, we had an incident just once. There was a Chinese man who was a gold miner who fell ill. He was taken to a hospital and tested positive for COVID-19; so. he was hurriedly released.

“He was in the Force Intelligence Bureau Department. So, only the suspects in that cell were tested. We were all at risk of getting infected with COVID-19.”

On why he was detained, Babatunde said he was disappointed that former President Jonathan could order his arrest because he was one of his biggest supporters.

President Goodluck Jonathan. (Punch) ece-auto-gen

“The funny thing is that I even tweeted good things about Goodluck Jonathan a few weeks before my arrest. I said Jonathan’s administration was better than that of the current President. So, I was shocked, but this is Nigeria.”

When asked if he was still a fan of Jonathan, Babatunde responded laughingly, “May God help us.”

The student, who is said to be an orphan also said then police officers that came to his uncle’s house to arrest him did not tell his uncle the reason for his arrest.

He said, “It was when I got to the station that I was asked what I did to offend Goodluck Jonathan.”

The final year student of Ladoke Akintola University of Technology also said he complied with the Twitter rules guiding the creating of parody accounts on Twitter, adding that he has never used the account to defraud anyone.

“I set it up just to make the timeline fun. I have my own personal twitter account, but I just wanted to ‘catch cruise’. It was my personal Twitter account that I converted. It was the same handle @jayythedope, but I changed my picture and profile name to that of Jonathan.

“I left my cover picture as @Jayythedope. All my information and personal email address were included in my bio. It was not an attempt to impersonate the former President. I also stated clearly that I was not GEJ. It was just a parody account. I didn’t expect things to blow up the way they did.

The student’s lawyer, Tope Akinyode, said Jonathan had already written through his lawyers to withdraw his complaint of impersonation.