When peaceful protest goes violent

Apart from perhaps the indefinite strike embarked on by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) which grabbed headlines last week, no other issue trended, online and offline, as much as the matter involving Charles Oputa, a.k.a. Charly Boy and his co-protesters.

Oputa, an entertainer-turned-activist, has over the past weeks been leading peaceful protests under the auspices of the #ResumeOrResign and #OurMumuDonDo movements. The protesters are asking President Muhammadu Buhari, who has been in London since May 7 on health grounds, to return back to Nigeria and resume his presidential duties or resign if incapacitated by ill health.

But events took a different turn last week. First, Coalition for Truth and Justice (CFTAJ), described as a pro-Buhari group, had on Sunday alleged that the sit-out rally, was being sponsored by Gombe State Governor Ibrahim Hassan Dankwambo, former Governor Olusegun Mimiko of Ondo State, and other politicians in the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) to the tune of N300 million. The group had also called on security agencies to place the protesters “under passive watch” because the protests were being sponsored to destabilise the country. But the protesters, in a statement signed by Charly Boy (leader, #ResumeOrResign Movement) for ‘Our Mumu Don Do Movement’ and Deji Adeyanju (co-Convener, #ResumeOrResign Movement) for ‘Concerned Nigerians’, promptly denied the allegations, describing them as “not just lies but are ridiculous and even embarrassing to those making the allegations”. The groups said their activities were “in line with the provisions of the constitution and we will continue to carry out our daily sit-out activities and not be intimidated”.

Following the protests, Femi Adesina, a presidential spokesperson, in an opinion piece said that if not for the “reformed” position of President Buhari as a “born-again democrat”, he could have permitted his supporters to “take off the heads” of his critics.

And so, when on Tuesday matters went beyond mere verbal exchange and degenerated into violence, those who remembered Adesina’s words called for his head.

Reports had it that the members of the #ResumeOrResign movement and some journalists narrowly escaped lynching by hoodlums at the Wuse Market in Abuja on Tuesday.

The group had reportedly approached the Wuse Market in a convoy of three cars and two powered motorbikes only to find that the market’s security agents had closed the gate in an attempt to turn the campaigners back. But the crowd pushed past the gate as Oputa tried to have a chat with the market’s head of security.

As the group marched deep into the market chanting ‘Our Mumu Don Do’ against President Muhammadu Buhari’s continued absence, some young men suddenly started trooping in confrontationally chanting ‘Sai Baba!’

Then they began to throw stones at everyone, forcing the crowd to disperse. In the process, Charly Boy was attacked. Some journalists were also hit while trying to flee the scene.

Charly Boy managed to find one of his bikers and zoomed off seated at the back while still being attacked with stones. His cars were destroyed in the process as well.

Oputa and his fellow campaigners had earlier been attacked by security agents who dispersed them violently from the Unity Fountain in Abuja where they had been holding their peaceful protest.

After the incident, the gates of Wuse market were temporarily closed and manned by heavily armed security operatives but were again reopened on Wednesday morning.

Adeyanju later told journalists that the attack came shortly after they had been informed on Saturday by security officers that policemen would be unavailable to prevent a breakdown of law and order.

“We are reliably informed that these thugs are sponsored by the Federal Government and members of the cabal that seeks to prevent us from asking for full disclosure of the health status of President Muhammadu Buhari,” he said.

“Unless we resist the vicious physical repression being unleashed on the #ResumeOrResign and #OurMumuDonDo movements today, the labour movement and other democratic forces that may have cause to protest may suffer greater repression on a larger scale in the future,” he added.

Reports also emerged that Oputa and Adeyanju had threatened court actions against President Muhammadu Buhari if he failed to resume or resign as Nigeria’s president if incapacitated by ill health within 21 days from August 16, 2017.

It was also reported that the coalition moved its protests to Lagos State and London while calling off its protest in Abuja over what it termed continued attacks on its members by the Nigerian police and alleged government’s sponsored hoodlums. The group equally said it would hold a vigil in front of the Abuja House in London where President Muhammadu Buhari has been recuperating from an undisclosed illness.

“Following the spate of violent attacks by officers of the Nigerian Police Force and then by paid hoodlums on our #ResumeOrResign daily sit-outs and peaceful processions in various parts of Abuja, it has become necessary to announce a suspension of our daily activities in the city,” the group said in a statement jointly signed by Oputa and Adeyanju.

“This temporary suspension is to enable us restrategise on ways to make our processions less open to such violent attacks and to better ensure the safety of all our members and other participants at our sit-outs and peaceful processions in future. This is also to make known our good intention and unreserved commitment to promote peace and unity in our beloved country. We believe this decision will help in dousing the unnecessary ethnic tension being stoked by the cabal holding Nigeria to a ransom,” they said.

Femi Aborisade, a Lagos-based human rights lawyer, was furious in his condemnation of the attacks and demanded for the resignation of Femi Adesina for what he termed “inciting comments” that could have prompted the attacks.

Aborisade, who noted that Adesina’s comments against the critics of Buhari’s government were capable of exposing such critics to attacks from pro-Buhari groups, said the right of dissent is a democratic right but the country seemed to be in danger by the APC regime that “has proven absolutely incapable of solving any of the problems compounded by the PDP’s 16 years of ruinous government”.

“There is a link between Adesina’s threats suggesting the possibility of assassinating government critics and the violent attacks on peaceful protesters of the #ResumeOrResign and #OurMumuDonDo movements,” he said.

“This is why Femi Adesina must be removed as a presidential spokesman. With the effrontery to issue a public statement threatening that but for the ‘democratic dispensation’ of Buhari, orders could have been given to ‘take off the heads of government critics.’ Femi Adesina has become a threat to Nigeria’s democracy,” he said.

But in a quick reaction, Adesina on Wednesday criticised the #ResumeOrResign group for taking the protests to a sensitive spot like the Wuse market.

While addressing a pro-Buhari group from the Niger-Delta region which staged a separate rally in Abuja to counter the #ResumeOrResign protesters, Adesina said what happened on Tuesday was an attempt to ethnicise the protest.

“We are not for ethnic cleavages, we are for one Nigeria. Anybody that attempted to ethnicise protests failed. Because everyone has a right to protest and ethnicity is not something that should be introduced to protest,” he said.

“Taking a protest to the market in the first place was wrong, so whoever took the protest to the market place was the one that attempted to make it get out of hand,” he added.

Adesina, who spoke on behalf of the presidency, said the government noticed that “some people have made efforts to create ethnic cleavages in the country but what the people from the Niger Delta region did today has reinforced faith that Nigeria will remain one”.

 

CHUKS OLUIGBO & NATHANIEL AKHIGBE