Actions of Government Forces, Protesters Fraught With Violence on Day One, Says Global Rights 

Ikechukwu Aleke in Abuja 

The Executive Director of Global Rights, Abiodun Baiyewu, yesterday said the first day of the #EndBadGovernance protest was fraught with violence both on the side of the government and protesters, with several incidents of violence and human rights violations. 

She also disclosed that Initial reports indicated that at least 20 people were killed following the protests.

Baiyewu, noted that the protest which is a manifestation of citizens’ frustration with the government and political class’s maladministration of the country’s assets, economy, and security, began on the 1st of August 2024 and its organisers have estimated that it may last for 10 days.

In a statement, Baiyewu said the protesters are not being flippant. 

She said that Nigeria is facing one of its worst inflations, exacerbating the quality of life of more than 63 per cent of its population, which the nation’s Bureau of Statistics describes as being multidimensionally poor. 

According to her, the inflation has aggravated the twin maladies of deprivation and unemployment and further pushed large swaths of the population into unbearable levels of poverty. 

She said: “Global Rights calls on the Nigerian government to respect its citizens’ right to protest and desist from further aggravating protesters across the country. It also calls on protesters to be law-abiding and peaceful in their conduct. The protests are channels of citizens’ demand for accountability and for the fulfilment of the government’s constitutional duty of ensuring the security and welfare of all citizens (S14(2)(b) Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria), and ensuring that its policies are humane (S17(2)(c) Nigerian Constitution). The government’s range of responses to the protests have done little to restore trust or assuage their frustrations. Rather than listen to their demands, it has for the past few weeks invested in a plethora of activities to gag protesters through scare tactics, obtaining court orders barring or limiting the freedom of assembly, and supporting counter protests against them even before they began.

She noted that having been notified weeks before the protests, the failure of the government to guarantee their rights to dissent only worsened an already precarious situation. 

“For instance, nothing justifies the use of live bullets in Kaduna, Niger, Kano, and Borno states when restless gatherings could have been dispersed through less violent means. The result was the avoidable killing of protesters in these places. We also noted the unlawful arrest of peaceful protesters in Delta, Abuja, and Lagos states, and the unjustified use of teargas to disperse protesters in Abuja and Niger states,” she said.

The Executive Director said the media, which is constitutionally mandated to hold the powerful accountable, were not spared. In Lagos and Abuja, she said some journalists were reported being barred by security agents from accessing protesters, stressing that several journalists including the Chair of the Nigerian Union of Journalists, Abuja chapter, Mr. Jide Oyekunle, were harassed and detained. 

She added that their phones and cameras were seized or destroyed in several instances, noting that while in most parts of the country, the protests were peaceful, there were also pockets of violence, with unscrupulous elements taking advantage of the situation to loot and vandalize public property, especially in Kano and Jigawa states.  

Global Rights noted that it is apparent to any keen observer that the actions of the government over the next few days will determine whether these protests, which were intended to be peaceful, will become anarchic.

She said the Nigerian government will be wise to change its posture and responses to the protests, adding that protests are a universally recognized tool of social engineering in a democracy. 

“They are an expression of the freedom of association, freedom of expression, and right to peaceful assembly. These rights are guaranteed under Sections 39 and 40 of the 1999 Nigerian Constitution and in several human rights instruments which Nigeria has ratified including Article 21 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; and Article 11 of the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights.

“Unfortunately, these rights are often glossed over when the Nigerian Government crafts its response to protests. A similar response to the #ENDSARS protests in 2020 left at least 246 dead and at least 352 arrested. In order to navigate this trajectory in the nation’s history without further damage to national cohesion, it is our considered opinion that the Government must change course and adopt the notion that even when protests become unruly and chaotic, the government’s reaction must be proportional and consistent with international human rights standards,” she concluded.