Organisers of RevolutionNow symposium were on Monday thrown into confusion, as security agents drawn from the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) and Department of State Security (DSS) arrived earlier at the venue and sealed it off for fours, thereby preventing dignitaries and guests from gaining access.
The main organiser of the symposium; Coalition for Revolution (CORE), a political movement led by Omoyele Sowore, who is being detained by the DSS following his recent controversial RevolutionNow protests, had chosen The Logos Centre, 46 Ibijoke Street, Oregun, Ikeja, as venue of the symposium. But they were shocked upon arriving the venue to see that police and DSS operatives had taken over the place.
Nobel laureate, Wole Soyinka expected to speak at the symposium did not show up. However, a Lagos based lawyer and human rights activist, Femi Falana was at the venue of the event, where three persons were allegedly arrested.
Recall that the police high command had on the eve of the RevolutionNow protests planned nationwide by Sowore and his group on August 5, declared it treasonable, with the DSS taking Sowore into custody days to the protests, which, however, still held in some states of the federation and Abuja.
The sealing of the symposium venue in Lagos on Monday was seen as the continuation of the Federal Government’s tough stance against the RevolutionNow proponents.
It took the intervention of Falana, who insisted that preventing the organisers from holding the symposium tantamount to denying citizens their fundamental right of lawful assembly and association guaranteed under the 1999 constitution.
The symposium was organised to draw an immediate attention to Nigeria’s growing social and security crises and point way forward.
Soyinka, Falana and Anthony Kila, a Cambridge professor, were among those invited to add their voices to Nigeria’s disturbing level of insecurity and increasing penchant of the President Muhammadu Buhari- led government for cracking down on critics.
“I was prepared to speak on insecurity and increasing intolerance towards critics by this regime. Disrupting such a peaceful gathering of eminent Nigerians means the country is even in a bigger trouble than many preciously realised,” Kila was quoted to have said.
Falana, speaking at the symposium which later held after persuading the security operatives to unseal the venue, described their action as unacceptable in a democracy.
I will like to commend everyone for insisting that that our rights to assemble and associate peacefully in the country be respected.
I want to assure you that we are going to ensure that all the rights of Nigerian people that we have fought for and won will not be allowed to be eroded by any regime in this country.
When we were told that we will not be allowed to meet, my mind went back 30 years ago when you have the Buhari, Babangida and others junta. We defeated the regimes and I want to assure you all that any other dictator will not be allowed to raise their head again in Nigeria.
I want to assure you that all those that were arrested and charged during the Revolution now for unlawful assembly and peace will be given adequate defended at the court of law,” Falana told the audience.
The human rights activist insisted on revolution saying “let the authority in Abuja know that the call for revolution is not new in Nigeria. Political leaders in this country have over time call for revolution and they have never been arrested and prosecuted.”
JOSHUA BASSEY
