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Lekki Toll Gate: Arrest of End SARS protesters may lead to street demonstrations – HURIWA warns

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Lekki Toll Gate Arrest of End SARS protesters may lead to street demonstrations – HURIWA warns

The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, HURIWA, has said the arrest of End SARS protesters at Lekki Toll Gate was an affront to Nigeria’s constitution.

HURIWA warned that the arrest carried out by the Lagos State Police Command could motivate activists from across the country to pour out on the streets to carry out solidarity marches.

A statement by HURIWA’s National Coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko said the arrest of citizens turning out for peaceful demonstration is a violation of chapter 4 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria of 1999 as amended with particular reference to the provisions safeguarding the fundamental human rights of Citizens which are universal and inalienable.

The Rights advocacy group said the brutal arrests of these activists by the police under the command and control of Mohammed Adamu who is occupying the office of the Inspector General of police illegally after he has gone past his disengagement period in line with the extant police Act of 2020, is an action that offends all known international human rights conventions, treaties endorsed by the Nigerian State and domesticated by the municipal law and the Grund Norm of Nigeria even as the group threatened to petition global leaders including President Joe Biden of the United States of America.

HURIWA said the protesters in Lagos State being attacked by the Nigerian Police Force are simply campaigning against the resolution of the Chairman of the Lagos fact finding judicial panel on ENDSARS protests to order the reopening of the Lekki Toll Gate even when public hearings on the alleged massacre in Lekki Toll Gate Lagos on October 20th 2020 are yet to come to a forensic conclusion.

“We in Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) demand the immediate release of all the protesters arrested on Saturday in LEKKI Toll Gates Lagos because what they are doing is legitimate, constitutional and lawful and to violently attack them as is being done by the armed security forces is sickening and absolutely devoid of respect for the fundamental human rights of Citizens,” the statement reads partly.