Group Drags FG to ECOWAS Court over Minor’s Murder

Adibe Emenyonu in Benin City

A civil society organisation One Love Foundation has dragged the federal government to the ECOWAS Court of Justice over the death of a 14-year-old girl, Jumoke Oyeleke, who was shot dead during a rally in support of Yoruba Nation in Lagos last week.

The President of the foundation, Patrick Eholor filed the suit at the court through his counsel, Samuel Ihensekhien recently to determine whether the federal government had the power to crack down on the peaceful protesters..

Eholor explained that he filed the court action to halt the continuous intimidation, suppression, harassment, killing and sometimes shooting of peaceful protesters while exercising their fundamental right to peaceful protest.

He alleged that the protesters were routinely killed, arrested and locked up in different security agencies cells all over Nigeria by different states of the federation.

Details of the case, which was filed Thursday and copies made available to newsmen, centred on the legality of the clampdown, including banning of protests by the federal government of Nigeria through the Nigeria police force, DSS and other security agencies.

Eholor said the main kernel of this suit, which has been filed at the ECOWAS court, centred on wrongful killing of a protester whose name was given simply as Jumoke during the recent Yoruba nation group protest in Lagos state, Nigeria

Also speaking on the suit, Ihensekhien said peaceful protest “is not and can never be a crime in Nigeria. Protest in Nigeria is protected by the provisions of Nigeria constitution, which guarantees the rights to freedom of expression and information.

“Articles 8 and 9 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and also Articles 7, 9 & 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights 1976, are all treaties and laws the Nigerian government is signatory to,” the lawyer said.

Ihensekhien wondered why the federal government was demonised and sometimes criminalised by state actors in Nigeria just like the clamp down on Omoleye Sowore during a protest at Unity Fountain in Abuja recently.
The lawyer said: “Up till now, there is no official communication, nor response to the group’s demands and letter, nor any comment from the Nigerian authorities.

“The above emboldens the need why One Love Foundation now approached the ECOWAS court to determine in finality, the illegality of continuous clamp down on peaceful protesters by security agencies and other state actors in Nigeria.”