DESPITE the arrest of its lead convener, Mr Omoyele Sowore, by operatives of the Department of State Services (DSS), on Saturday, human rights activists, who are also part of the #RevolutionNow protest scheduled for about 25 states today, Monday, August 5, have promised to go ahead with the exercise.
The rights activists, under the Conveners of Free Nigeria Movement (FNM) and Coalition in Defence of Nigeria’s Democracy and Constitution (CDNDC), led respectively by Raphael Adebayo and Dare-Ariyo Atoye, said they would mobilise “hundreds of most frustrated Nigerians to occupy the streets of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja.”
But police authorities in Abuja have warned those planning the protest to stop the exercise, saying it amounted to inciting Nigerians against the Federal Government with the aim of forcing a regime change.
Force Police Public Relations Officer (FPRO), DCP Frank Mba, disclosed in a statement on Saturday that the planned revolution march “is a treasonable and terrorism offence.”
This was just as the Federal Government came under criticisms from the Socio-Economic Right and Accountability Project (SERAP), fleeing leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, right activist, Deji Adeyanju, presidential candidate of the Alliance for New Nigeria (ANN), Fela Durotoye and others over the arrest of Sowore.
“Nigerians already know that we are all living on the fringes, and so they are no longer scared of tear gas or stray bullets. Nigerians already know that living in Nigeria simply means you can be killed by Boko Haram, Fulani herders, kidnappers, Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), police officers, hunger, poverty and depression.
“Hence, they have chosen the honourable path to die, if that’s what it takes, and that is a peaceful revolution for a new nation that we all can be proud of,” Dare-Ariyo told Sunday Tribune in separate telephone interviews.
They insisted that Sowore’s arrest would not deter “millions of Nigerians who were currently grappling with survival under this system of chronic deprivation from fighting for their liberation.”
Speaking further, Adebayo said tomorrow’s protest would mark the beginning of a new era of revolutionary agitations in the country, describing the arrest of the 2019 presidential election candidate of the African Action Congress (AAC) as “plainly a fascist and impulsive faux pas by government.
“By submitting himself as a willing vessel to spearhead #RevolutionNow, Sowore inflamed a burning desire within Nigerians for liberation from political and economic oppression; and his arrest cannot stop that. If anything, the revolution has just been energised,” he said.
Plans underway to secure Sowore’s release —Falana
Leading rights campaigner and lawyer, Femi Falana (SAN), on Saturday, disclosed that plans were underway to secure the release of Sowore.
Prominent Nigerians, including former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and former Vice President of World Bank, Oby Ezekwesili, amongst others, chided the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari for the arrest.
Falana told Sunday Tribune he endorsed the revolution, but refused to confirm or deny his participation, saying any arrests in connection with protest for or against government would be illegal, considering the subsisting court orders regarding same.
He explained that one of the gains made by pro-democracy activists is getting the courts to outlaw procurement of police permit before exercising fundamental rights to free speech and peaceful assembly.
He went on memory lane to 2003 in Kano when he was briefed by President Muhammadu Buhari, then as a presidential candidate of the All Peoples Party (APP) and his party, to challenge the demand for permit by police, before a planned protest over the outcome of the year’s presidential election, could hold.
Falana said apart from defeating the government of the day and the police at a High Court where free speech, peaceful gathering and protest were declared constitutional, police permit for protest was also ruled illegal.
He noted that the icing on the cake was the decision of the Court of Appeal, arising from an appeal by the then government of President Olusegun Obasanjo, which completely knocked the bottom off the posturing of the security agencies regarding protest.
According to him, the intermediate court specifically ruled that peaceful gathering, protest and free speech are all part of sections 39 and 40 of the 1999 Constitution, which confer fundamental rights