Nigeria : Police Struggling to Find Crimes Protesters Committed

The police are struggling to find any crimes that 10 Abuja detainees have committed. So they invented the most serious allegations they could dream up. These include treason, intent to destabilize Nigeria, conspiracy to commit felony, rioting and mutiny.

Despite the very serious nature of these crimes, they were given bail on September 11, albeit with stringent conditions. Only seven have managed, nearly two weeks after, to meet the conditions and been released or are about to be. However, all the 10 Abuja are to appear at the Federal High Court on Friday, 27th September.
The charges are even more flimsy for the hundred or so people who are still being held at the Inspector General of Police’s IRT offices and Kuje prison. Their offence was flying Russian flags
– but this is not a crime.

Femi Falana said : “the basis for charging 10 protesters for treason and terrorism for
participating in the August 2024 protests is to scare Nigerians from challenging the unpopular policies of the Government. Hence, the reasons adduced for the detention of the defendants are completely jejune [meagre or lacking substance]. For instance, Comrade Michael Adaramoye has been charged with treason because he answers to the sobriquet “Lenin”.
Comrades Eleojo Opaluwa and Mosiu Abolaji are also detained in the same police station for belonging to a socialist organisation that supported the protest.””

The problem for the police is that it is not illegal to be called by any nick-name. The socialist organisations that Eleojo and Mosiu may support are not proscribed. Neither is it a crime to support the #EndBadGovernance protests. President Bola Tinubu certainly did that in the past. So again, there is no actual crime for them to be found guilty of.

Eleojo’s family were told that the evidence against him was that he had received a WhatsApp message from the leader of the ‘conspiracy’. This was after Eleojo had actually been detained.

The only link between five of the detainees appears to be that they were members of the
WhatsApp group “ABUJA/NIGERIA AUGUST PROTES, Operations END BAD GOVERNANCE &
RESET NIGERIA”. But then in early August this group did have over 450 members. The two
main suspects were Group Admin for this group, but then so were two others who are not
wanted by the police. Mosiu was not a member of the group, but he was at Michael’s house
when he was arrested. Michael and Eleojo were not Group Admin for this group. The group
was only established on 27th July.

The five other detainees who are accused with this group of conspirators to commit treason
are from various northern cities, mainly Kaduna. The only link between them is that some of them supported the protests on their FaceBook pages – this is still not a crime. There is no known link between these five and the other five detainees or those that are still at large. The only thing that they have in common is support for the August protests – along with millions of other Nigerians.

Daniel Akande was arrested in church on 1st September. He has been held at the IRT offices for nearly four weeks without being charged to court. This is a blatant contradiction to the 48 hour limit provided in the Nigeria Constitution. More than 100 other detainees are also being held at the IRT offices, most in insanitary conditions without adequate food, some for as long as nine years.

The police case is even weaker for the approximately 104 detainees still held at their IRT
Offices and Kuje Prison in Abuja in connection with #EndBadGovernance protests. These
include a number of children including at least six who are 16, another six who are only 15
and three as young as 14 years old. Many of these have been in police detention since 1st
August. The police did gain a court order to detain them for a further 60 days on 22nd August. By then many of them had been held for three weeks – a clear breach of the Constitutional limit of two days. How many of the parents of the children even know where they are ?

When their cases are considered properly in court, many of the detainees are being
immediately released. For example, on 12/13th September, a total of 73 protesters were
unconditionally discharged and 83 were granted bail at Kano Senior Magistrates Courts.
Similarly on 19th September the DSS in Kaduna released six protesters from detention and
only three are to be charged. So when protesters finally reach court half are immediately
released after suffering months in prison. Is this justice ?

The police should release all the detainees in Abuja and other places associated with the
August protests. They may consider it embarrassing to do this now, but it will only get worse if they have to expose their lack of evidence in court.

We call on trade unions, civil society organizations and all people of good conscience to join
the campaign to ensure that all the detainees are released and call on the police and other
security agencies to respect the right of the people to freely express their rejection of the
disastrous, anti-poor people neo-liberal policies of the Tinubu government in the next round
of protests from 1st October. Lastly we commend the Nigerian Bar Association and all the
lawyers who have represented #EndBadGovernance protesters, unjustly detained across the country, free of charge.

Gerald O Katchy
National Coordinator
Initiative Against Human Rights Abuse and Torture
INAHURAT