Two senior Nigerian lawyers, Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa SAN and Femi Falana SAN have rejected a proposal by the Inspector General of Police (IGP) Kayode Egbetokun for confined protests.
Nigerians are set to take to the streets on August 1, in a protest seeking to put an end to bad governance.
Following a meeting with Egbetokun on Tuesday, the organisers of the protest tagged #EndBadGovernance refused the proposal by IGP to restrict the protest to identified locations.
“It is not advisable to go on street processions because as you are planning a protest, some are planning violence,” the IGP was quoted to have advised.
However, in response, Adegboruwa a lawyer for the Take It Back Movement, one of the groups organising the nationwide protests, rejected the proposal of the IGP.
Human rights lawyer, Falana representatives of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), other lawyers, civil society organisations as well as some arrowheads of the planned protests who attended the meeting also refused Egbetokun suggestion.
The increase in the price of food and basic commodities have gone through the roof in the last months, as Nigerians battle one of the country’s worst inflation rates and economic crises sparked by the government’s twin policies of petrol subsidy removal and unification of forex windows.
Meanwhile, the police, military and the Department of State Services (DSS) had warned against Kenya-styled protests.
Adegboruwa, one of the lawyers for the protesters, had on July 26, 2024, written the IGP to provide police coverage for protesters.
The IGP, in his response letter dated July 29, 2024, directed senior police officers to attend to the request of the senior lawyer.
Egbetokun subsequently requested to meet with Adegboruwa in Abuja on Tuesday, July 30, 2024, “to deliberate further” on his request.
However, the Senior Advocate of Nigeria opted for a virtual meeting with the police boss, enlisting Falana, members of the NBA and others to attend the meeting.
Adegboruwa highlighted some of the points of convergence for the protests as Eagle Square, Abuja; Alausa Park, Lagos; Akpakpava Lane, Benin City; School of Agric, Bauchi; Rosewale Filling Station, Iwo Road, Ibadan; Maiduguri Roundabout, opposite State Stadium, Damaturu, Yobe State; Rainbow Roundabout and Pantani Stadium, River and Freedom Park, Osogbo.
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