Nigeria celebrated the 28th anniversary of June 12, Democracy Day, over the weekend, an event that was marked by protests in some states including Lagos and the FCT. The protests in Lagos and Abuja were marred by the police who fired teargas to disperse protesters in the Gudu area of Abuja and Gani Fawehinmi Park, in Ojota area of Lagos as reported by Nairametrics.
Pictures of Police brutality spread over the internet, thanks to added attention on Nigeria’s Democracy day after Twitter founder, Jack Dorsey, sent a solidarity tweet to mark the occasion.
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— jack (@jack) June 11, 2021
In Abuja, protesters at Gudu junction, who came out in their numbers, asked for the resignation of the president amongst other demands due to the state of the nation.
However, as the protests continued, heavily armed policemen stormed the scene and began shooting tear gas into the air, dispersing the protesters.
The Nigerian Police defended its use of teargas on Democracy Day protesters who took to the streets to express their displeasure at the present administration over the state of the nation. Force Public Relations Officer, Mr Frank Mba, said that the actions of the police officers were in line with global best practices of dispersing violent protests.
“We had an isolated case in Abuja where some of the protesters became unruly and in line with international best practices, police fired teargas at them. And that is an acceptable mode of engaging violent protesters anywhere in the world, whether it is in Abuja, Lagos, Paris, London, or New York or California. That is internationally accepted.
We would have problems if we had fired live bullets at them, but when you fire teargas at protesters to disperse them, you are not in breach of any known code, either nationally or internationally,” Mba said.
The issue with this approach with unarmed protesters is that the government is openly rehabilitating Boko Haram terrorists, and currently having talks with Shiekh Gumi, who is also demanding amnesty for terrorists in the North Central and North East.
Making peaceful resolution a crime leaves violent negotiation as the only other alternative to force the government’s attention to the plight of citizens, which is not in the interest of the Nigerian government with rising cases of insecurity nationally.
Democracy Day is a day for Nigerians to remember the efforts of Nigeria on its path to a democracy that works for all, but on Saturday, Nigerian youths were once again reminded that their demand to be better governed would be met with a heavy-handed response. In a nutshell, the actions of the Nigerian Police towards protesters exercising a civic right was counterproductive, tone-deaf and a setback to achieving peace and reconciliation with the Nigerian people.
