October 24, (THEWILL) – The President of the Nigerian Bar Association, Olumide Akpata, has called for the unconditional release of all peaceful protesters and journalists who were harassed and unlawfully detained during the #EndSARS one year memorial.
Akpata, in a statement, said the arrest of peaceful protesters and journalists on lawful duty showed that the country and its security agencies had not learnt from last years’ experience as symbolised by the arrest and detention of peaceful protesters exercising their fundamental human rights, and journalists going about their lawful duties at the Lekki Toll Plaza on Wednesday.
He consequently directed the NBA Human Rights Committee to immediately spring into action to ensure the protection of the rights of those arrested, while frowning at the failure of the various governments to compensate victims of police brutality, whose petitions have been upheld by the various #EndSARS panels.
Speaking on the #EndSARS panels, the NBA President noted that a sustainable improvement in the quality of the police-citizen relationship must consist of robust legislative intervention that addresses the structural problems of the Police Force itself as an institution, with particular concern to the welfare and discipline of the rank and file.
To this effect, he stated that the Nigerian Bar Association is collaborating with the House of Representatives in its legislative response to the underlying issues.
That intervention crystallised into a Bill repealing and re-enacting the Police Service Commission Act, which is due, now for Third Reading at the National Assembly, a part of the statement read.
It would be recalled that the protests began as a social media campaign against the notorious Special Anti-Robbery Squad, SARS, an elite unit of the Nigeria Police reputed for its excessive use of force, cruelty, unlawful arrests, torture, extrajudicial killings, and flagrant abuse of the law.
In response to the protests, the government disbanded SARS but almost immediately replaced it with another agency, the Special Weapon and Tactics (SWAT) team.
The determined protesters, however, refused to be fooled as that was the fourth time the SARS unit of the police was disbanded but continued to operate afterwards. As the protests gained ground both locally and internationally, the arguments became broader, accommodating the general state of the nation’s insecurity, widening poverty, corruption and poor governance.
It took a short while for the protest, which continued as a mass demonstration against the age-long police brutality, to shake Nigeria and climaxed in an unwarranted clampdown on the protesters by soldiers at the Lekki tollgate, Lagos State on October 20, 2020.
The first anniversary of the #EndSARS protest, tagged, #endsarsmemorial, was recently observed in commemoration of the movement and those whose lives were cut short during the protests.
While the memorial was without hitches in Abuja, it was unexpectedly different in Lagos as protesters and journalists at the Lekki toll plaza experienced harassment from the police with some of them beaten, arrested and detained for no specific reason.
Protesters in other states, such as Osun, Kwara, Delta, Cross River, were dispersed, while protesters in Oyo State called for the unconditional release of Yoruba nation activist, Chief Sunday Adeyemo, aka Sunday Igboho, the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu and nine protesters who are still in detention.
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