The Nigeria Police Force has said the #RevolutionNow protest
conceived by Omoyele Sowore is ill-timed.
The Police while warning the protesters to shelve the idea
stated that the march had treasonable felony and acts of terrorism
written all over it.
Speaking during a morning programme on television monitored by
our correspondent, the Force Spokesman, DCP Frank Mba admitted that
law enforcement is becoming challenging.
He said: “I can’t but agree with you that law enforcement has
actually become increasingly challenging.
“The globalisation of the world as well as the strong impact of
internet, ICT, social media and the rest of modern technology has
made it more complicated and more challenging.
“For us, beyond the fact that this protest or movement started
out as revolution march; we also figured out that for people who
are very sensitive to national unity, for those who are sensitive
to peace and order, the timing is also suspect.
“We just came out of a situation in Abuja where there were back
to back protests by a particular sect that led to massive damage of
public property.
“An agency like National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) that
is statutorily charged with providing emergency relief, should
there even be a protest and one of the protesters gets injured.
“NEMA is an agency that will attend to the protesters but the
violent protesters choose NEMA as a soft target and set ablaze its
outpost and ambulance that could have been deployed to assist them
should any of them fall and that shows the senselessness of such
protest.
“The protesters also attempted to forcefully invade the National
Assembly. The parliament for me is actually the biggest and most
visible symbol of democracy worldwide.
“Once you are able to squeeze the parliament out of existence,
then there is no democracy and in an attempt to do that, they
damaged lots of property, attacked and injured so many law
enforcement agencies.
He continued: “The peak was when an unarmed Deputy Commissioner
of Police who tried to engage them got killed.
“A youth corps member was also killed. We are still trying to
get over these complications and then someone is calling for a
revolution.
“The timing is very poor, the use of the word revolution, the
kind of statements that were issued subsequently, the threats and
the intensity of the threats, these are all factors that we
reviewed holistically including other intelligence at our disposal
and so, these were the reasons why we initiated some of the
proactive measures that we used.”
On how long Sowore would be in detention, Mba said: “You know
clearly that the DSS said he is in their custody.
“So, I won’t be speaking for them but I also know that they
would proceed with this case expeditiously.
“I am sure that the DSS will not want to make him become the
kind of celebrity he is craving to be and his matter will dealt
expeditiously. I am sure they are working on that.”
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