The Inspector General of Police (IGP) Kayode Egbetokun has disclosed that there are plans to involve the Armed Forces if things get out of control during the planned nationwide #EndBadGovernance protests.
Egbetokun disclosed this while hosting a Zoom meeting with concerned prominent human rights lawyers Femi Falana (SAN) and Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa (SAN), Take-It-Back Movement, representatives of the Nigerian Bar Association, and various civil society organisations on Tuesday afternoon, which was monitored by SaharaReporters.
The police chief stated that soldiers will be asked to monitor public demonstrations if there are sufficient reasons to believe that what happened during the 2020 #EndSARS protests will reoccur.
He said, “For those people who are threatening violence, most of them are faceless. Most of them remain faceless. And for those of them that we have been able to trace, we have picked some of them up; they are already in our detention.
“We arrested one yesterday who was threatening violence, who was instigating people to go and bomb public places and burn down police stations. We have such in our custody.
“With respect to the involvement of the military, the military is not going to come out to provide security during this protest. The military will only come out when the situation gets out of hand. What happened during the #EndSARS, the military did not just come out.
“We have forgotten that five police stations were burnt down in one day before the government of Lagos announced a curfew.”
SaharaReporters also reported that the organisers of the planned nationwide protest had rejected the proposal of the police for a confined protest.
According to the IGP, the protest slated for August should be confined for security reasons and to avoid being hijacked by miscreants.
“It is not advisable to go on street processions because as you are planning peaceful protests, some are planning violence,” Egbetokun cautioned.
However, this proposal was vehemently rejected by concerned Nigerians who attended the meeting, viewing it as a violation of their constitutional right to assembly as granted by the Constitution.
Adegboruwa, one of the lawyers for the Take It Back Movement, said the venues specified to the police will be used as meeting points but Nigerians will not be confined there during the 10-day protests.
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