The New Experience Newspapers Online News Indepth, Analysis and More
The Department of State Services (DSS) and the police have foiled the planned RevolutionNow protest in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital.
Ten police and one DSS patrol vans were used to barricade the Isaac Boro Park in Port Harcourt where the conveners of the protests were billed to converge for the rally.
Governor Nyesom Wike had on Sunday directed security operatives to arrest any group that would embark on protest in any part of the state.
One of the conveners, Nneye Kocha, decried the directive by the state government to clamp down on protesters.
He explained that government needed to hear out the protesters, adding that the same Wike had complained bitterly during the last election over the action of security agents.
According to him, the RevolutionNow protest was intended to highlight the governance issues plaguing Nigeria and to jolt the government from slumber.
“The protest is about the right of Nigerians, including those in government. We were trying to use the opportunity to highlight the problem we have in this country,” he added.
Due to Governor Wike’s directive to the police, the protesters could not access the venue of the planned protest.
Meanwhile, security was beefed up in parts of Anambra State in anticipation of the RevolutionNow protests.
This is even as a former chairman of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Awka branch, Emmanuel Okechukwu, chided the Federal Government for “undemocratic arrest” of Omoyele Sowore and breach of his fundamental rights.
Sowore, a former presidential candidate who convened the protest, was arrest at the weekend by the police for alleged treason.
On account of the protest, the police deployed an Armoured Personnel Carrier and three highway patrol vans at the entrance of Government House, Awka, yesterday.
But angry men, women and youths from Umunya community, Oyi Council, besieged the Government House to register their grievance over purported harassment and intimidation by vigilante and police, as well as unwholesome sale of communal land by the traditional ruler, Igwe Chris Onyekwuluje.
Addressing state government officials, the leader of the protesters from Umunya, Chief Obed Nweke, accused the traditional ruler of using the local vigilante and Divisional Police Officer (DPO) for Oyi to terrorise the inhabitants over their opposition to the sale of communal land belonging to Odumodu Ani people of Umunya.
