Shrinking the democratic space

Some days ago, the police in Abuja disrupted the peaceful gathering and procession by the Bring Back Our Girls (BBOG) movement and briefly detained some of its members who were on a peaceful march to the State House to demand that the president keeps his promise to rescue all the Chibok girls still being held hostage. According to Oby Ezekwesili, former minister of education and co-convener of the BringBackourgirls campaign, the police officers deployed by the Inspector General of Police to the Unity Fountain, starting point of the group’s march to the Villa, violated their freedom by building an impregnable human wall locking them in for several hours and refusing to let them out of the wall. They were consequently whisked away in a police van to the FCT Police Command.

Although they were not formally detained in cells, they were kept at the police command and were released only after being briefed by the Commissioner of Police Sadiq Abubakar Bello without being told what their offences were. Pictures in circulation showed Ezekwesili and some members of the group sitting on the floor at the command. They had reportedly queried the reason for their detention and sought a formal charge, but none was forth-coming.

Responding and justifying its decision to whisk the group to the command, the spokesman of the FCT Police Command, Anjuguri Manzah said via a statement that “they were only brought to the command to ensure there was no breakdown of law and order, as some members of the group reacted violently and broke down security barriers set up by the police to restrict their protest to Unity Fountain.”

This is not true as members of the group had conducted themselves civilly and peacefully since they began their sit outs at the Unity Fountain in 2014.

We need to remind the government the nature of democratic rule is such that all shades of opinion are given free expressions and the constitution guaranteed everyone the freedom of movement and association.

We think the government has its hand full already with many challenges begging for urgent attention than to spend precious time harassing innocent citizens for demanding the President keeps his promise. The economy is still wobbling; unemployment and underemployment are at an all time high while fuel queues are becoming a permanent feature of life in the country. In the area of security, Boko Haram has only been ‘technically’ defeated; terrorists and killers masquerading as herdsmen are on rampage all over the country and causing disquiet and Niger Delta militants are threatening to resume blowing up oil installations.  We believe these should occupy the attention of the government and not the innocuous comments and actions of a peaceful group who feel rightly aggrieved that the government is not steering the country on the right path and has yet to fulfil its promise to rescue the abducted Chibok girls.

At the height of its advocacy, the All Progressive Congress (APC) and the President sought to identify with the group and co-opt it into its campaign for the 2015 elections. Now that the party is in government, the group has become an irritant that needs to be crushed.

It is as if events of 1984 are gradually being re-enacted. We recall that in 1984, at the peak of the crushing and debilitating economic hardship caused by severe scarcity and endless queues for essential commodities like milk, sugar, rice, and bread, the criticism of the government became rifer. The Buhari military regime, in response, became more oppressive and intolerant of criticism. It also expanded the powers of the Nigerian Security Organisation (NSO) significantly to deal with Nigerians that criticised the regime. Sadly, we are in the same situation as 1984 and the response from the regime seems not to be different from that of 1984.

We call on the President to rather focus on his job and promise of rescuing the Chibok girls rather than attempt to deny Nigerians their constitutional rights to expression and association.