You Can’t Intimidate Falana With Rented Protesters, Ex-governorship Candidate Tells FG

Former governorship candidate in Ogun State, Ogbeni Lanre Banjo,
has warned the Nigerian Government against intimidating human
rights lawyer, Femi Falana (SAN).

Banjo on Saturday in a statement said the move to rent
protesters against an individual showed the desperation of the
President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration to silence all
opposing voices.

He said instead of the President to focus on governance, he was
glorifying trivialities.

Banjo said, “The recent elections in Bayelsa and Kogi states
that took many lives presented Nigeria as a jungle.

“The President and his cohorts celebrating certificates
illegally earned through the snatching of ballot boxes, on the
blood of citizens they are in power to serve and destruction of
properties certainly disrepute Nigeria in the comity of
nations.

“As if these were not dangerous enough, the protest tagged ‘Femi
Falana Enough Is Enough’, was staged by pawns to further disgrace
the country.

“The protest mirrors an absurdity taken too far and presents the
civilised world the opportunity to further see us as sub-human and
our country as not part of the world.

“The fact that the State Security Service has not distanced
itself from this eyesore act and the presidency has not condemned
the senseless protest established the hands of Esau.

“This then begs the question of the type of country we are
building, if we are building any at all.”

Speaking further, Banjo called on the government to release
activists Omoyele Sowore and Olawale Bakare widely known as
Mandate, who both remain in the detention of the Department of
State Services despite two court orders directing their release on
bail.