…as Police ban protest in Osun
BY TIMOTHY AGBOR, OSOGBO
COALITION of civil societies in Osun State has flayed the Police for banning protest against insecurities and hike in food prices across the country.
Some concerned groups in the state had planned to stage a protest on Wednesday against killings, banditry and hardships in the nation but the State Police Command warned against any form of assembly in the state.
In a statement signed by the Command’s Spokesperson, SP Yemisi Opalola in Osogbo, the Police said intelligence revealed that some people were planning to embark on “unlawful gathering/protest, to show their grievances concerning an ill-conceived perception of insecurity and hike in food prices in the State.”
The statement quoted the Commissioner of Police, Olawale Olokode, as advising those planning the protest to forget it and warned that the Command would not condone any act that would jeopardise the existing relative peace and tranquility presently enjoyed in the state.
Olokode noted that the spate of insecurity presently experienced was nationwide and not peculiar to Osun State, and to this end, no protest should hold.
He argued further that a gathering of any sort was unlawful and a violation of COVID-19 laws.
“The command will not tolerate deliberate blocking of roads to impede free-flow of human and vehicular movements, molestation of peace-loving members of the public, and wilful/malicious destruction of any kind whatsoever; this will be resisted vehemently,” the statement said.
The CP therefore appealed to all parents and guardians to warn their children to desist from any act(s), capable of causing the breach of peace in the State.
But speaking with The Point on Wednesday, Comrade Waheed Lawal, Chairman of the Coalition for Civil Societies in the State, expressed displeasure at the decision of the Police to ban protest, which he described as the fundamental right of Nigerians.
While bemoaning the spate of insecurities and growing hunger in the nation, the human rights activist threatened that civil societies would mobilise and shut Nigeria should Governments fail to address the issues of insecurities and hike in prices of food items in the country.
Lawal said, “For now, we don’t have protest but what police are saying is rubbish. They cannot take our fundamental rights away from us. Protest is part of democracy. What we are witnessing today as democracy was brought about by the struggle of our people, so, a Commissioner of Police or any other officer of the law cannot take it from us.
“Protest is our fundamental right and whenever we want to come up, we will come out. We don’t fear them and they can’t stop us. If we are ready to hit the street, we will hit the street.”
“Yes, prices of food items are costly and we are still discussing on that. We are taking cognisance of the killings, kidnappings and we want to take everything together. We want it to be a national protest. It will be a total shut down of the country if Government does not attend to our requests,” he added.
