DESPITE public outcry, the Nigeria Police under Muhammed Abubakar has persisted in violating the rights of Nigerians to assemble peacefully. The break-up of peaceful protests is spreading, raising real concerns that 14 years of civil rule have not tempered the repressive instincts of our security agents. This is simply unacceptable and should be fiercely resisted by all Nigerians who value their freedom.
The frequency of the police assault on the right to assemble is rising and Abubakar, as the Inspector-General of Police, should be held responsible. On October 23, a rally to protest the scandal of the N255 million bulletproof cars bought for the Aviation Minister, Stella Oduah, was forcibly broken up. Police went ahead to arrest Dino Melaye, the Executive Secretary of the Anti-Corruption Network, and 28 other members of the civil society group. About a week earlier, a group of concerned Nigerians and students were turned back from presenting a protest letter to the leadership of the National Assembly over the four-month old strike by university lecturers. In Port Harcourt, Rivers State, police similarly violently dispersed dons, who, under the umbrella of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, were set to stage a peaceful protest.
In Imo State, lecturers and students were tear-gassed as they gathered at the Federal University of Technology, Owerri, for a peaceful rally. In Ondo State, two separate peaceful rallies by ASUU – at the Federal University of Technology, Akure and at the Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba – were disrupted by well-armed police teams. At the University of Lagos, Akoka, police, this time with a nod from the UNILAG authorities, besieged and barricaded the institution's main gate to foil a planned demonstration by students from various institutions against the continued mishandling of the ASUU strike by the Federal Government. In Makurdi, Benue State, even primary school pupils were tear-gassed by police as they marched to protest the continued closure of their schools by a teachers' strike.
Similar efforts by citizens to ventilate their feelings have been truncated by police in Kaduna, Anambra and many other states. As we noted recently, Abubakar is replicating the infamy of the police in the latter part of the Second Republic when, under Sunday Adewusi, the then IG, the police became the storm troopers of the ruling clique.
This concern is very real as double standards are in evidence when pro-government elements also decide to exercise their right to assemble. For instance, while breaking up the march by the anti-Oduah protesters, the police pointedly provided cover for a band of rough necks, who, marching in support of the minister, also confronted the Melaye group. Worse still, they were armed with sticks and cudgels, in obvious breach of the law. The tyranny of the Rivers State command where police routinely assault peaceful assemblies that support Governor Rotimi Amaechi and enthusiastically provide cover for violent ex-militants and sundry rowdy crowds hired to assail him, continues to threaten the peace of the state.
Abubakar is to serve Nigerians, not personalities who temporarily occupy public office. When in August some women's groups, in concert with the President's wife, Patience Jonathan, organised a march and rally in Abuja, police and the State Security Service practically locked down the federal capital in a shameful display of sycophancy as they shepherded participants.
Meanwhile, insecurity is rising; policemen are being killed by bandits and terrorists; corruption is rife in the force and the welfare of policemen is neglected. These are real and pressing issues for Abubakar that should take precedence over doing the bidding of politicians.
A shaky democracy like ours cannot afford an increasingly obsequious police force that equates national interest with serving a narrow few. The police should not be turned into the personal enforcers of presidential loyalists.
The 1999 Constitution, in Section 40, clearly guarantees the right of all Nigerians to peaceful assembly. Abubakar and his men have no right to abridge that right under any guise. There is also a subsisting Court of Appeal judgment that reaffirms this fundamental right and negates the need for a police permit that had been used for decades to oppress the people.
But the police get away with impunity because many Nigerians fail to understand that freedom and democracy flourish only where the people doggedly fight for their rights, using all available constitutional means. Victims of police repression should seek redress in court, take their case to their elected legislators at local, state and national levels and defy illegal measures by the police to circumscribe their rights to assemble peacefully. Freedom does not come on a platter. All should emulate James Abah, the Abuja-based lawyer, who has sued the police and others for locking down Abuja when Mrs Jonathan went marching. Individuals and groups denied their rights should head for the courts.
The Nigerian Bar Association should stand up to be counted when Nigerians' basic rights are being trampled upon and democracy threatened. We commend the civil groups that have been consistent in protesting rights violations and corruption and urge all civil society groups to resume their heroic struggle to enthrone democracy and basic freedoms in the face of current threats by agents of repression.
