By Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa, SAN
After the right to life, the next important right for every individual is the right to freedom of speech, by which all men and women are conferred with the inalienable right to express themselves freely.
In Genesis Chapter 4, God punished Cain for killing his brother Abel without a lawful cause. Even in his state of condemnation, Cain protested the punishment as being too harsh. Genesis 4:13: “And Cain said to the Lord, ‘My punishment is greater than I can bear! Surely You have driven me out this day from the face of the ground; I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond on the earth and it will happen that anyone who finds me will kill me. And the Lord said to him, ‘Therefore, whoever kills Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the Lord set a mark on Cain, lest anyone finding him should kill him.” The right to protest is intrinsic to every citizen and it is divinely recognized and ordained by God. It was once part of the custom of Israel that female children were not entitled to inherit the assets of their father upon his death. This custom stood sacrosanct for a long time until it came to the turn of certain brave women. Zelophehad was a very wealthy man who had five daughters and had no male child. After his death, his five daughters approached Moses in Numbers 27, to protest against the law of God which discriminated against them in favour of their male counterparts. They stood boldly before the priests and the elders of the land to demand for their rights. This was strange to Moses for anyone to seek to overturn the custom but he was brave enough to take their protest directly to God. God sanctioned their protest and thereafter changed the existing law to sanction female inheritance. God ordained the right to freedom from discrimination based on the protest of some courageous women. The law against discrimination has thereafter found itself in various statutes, especially section 42 of the 1999 Constitution.
In modern day Nigeria however, and in 2024, we are being told that the right to protest is a crime. Beyond any doubt, section 39 (1) of the Constitution of Nigeria supports the freedom of expression when it states that ‘every person shall be entitled to freedom of expression, including freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart ideas and information without interference’. According to Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, a protest is ‘a solemn declaration of opinion and usually of dissent, the act of objecting or a gesture of disapproval, a complaint, objection, or display of unwillingness usually to an idea or a course of action, to make a protestation’. Some Nigerians have declared their intention to stage protests across the nation to express their grievances and disagreement with the economic policies of the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu which they claimed to have imposed suffering, hunger and poverty on the masses of the people. Government on the other hand has become unnecessarily jittery of the likely outcome of such protests, citing the case of the #EndSARS protests of 2020. It is interesting to note that a government led by President Tinubu cannot stand protests. What exactly is the government’s opposition to peoples’ gathering? The Take It Back Movement, led by Comrade Omoyele Sowore, is part of the leaders of the proposed August Protest. That is a known entity, who will work along with other civil society organisations to co-ordinate the protests. Earlier this year, there were spontaneous protests in Oyo, Osun, Edo and Kano States fueled by the cruel neo-liberal economic policies of the Tinubu administration. No one could identify the leaders of those protests but here we have known individuals who have put forth their names and reputation to lead the protest and the government is not satisfied with that? Let me draw the attention of the President to the provisions of several statutes in Nigeria that sanction the right of citizens to protest.
Under and by virtue of Section 40 of the 1999 Constitution, ‘every person shall be entitled to assemble freely and associate with other persons’. Section 41 of the same Constitution grants the freedom of free movement to all citizens. But more importantly, the Police Act 2020, has specifically imposed a sacred obligation on the government not only to allow civil protests but also to provide security for the protection of protesters. Section 83 of the Police Act provides as follows:
“83 (1) The Police Force is responsible for maintaining and securing public safety and public order.
(2) The Police Force shall, in carrying out its responsibilities under subsection (1):
(a) uphold the provisions of the Constitution and other laws;
(b) uphold and protect the fundamental rights of all persons in Nigeria, and
(c ) be fair to all persons in Nigeria notwithstanding their economic status or religious, ethnic or political beliefs and affiliations.
(4) Where a person or organization notifies the police of his or its intention to hold a public meeting, rally or procession on a public highway, or such meetings in a place where the public has access to, the police officer responsible for the area where the meeting, rally or procession will take place, shall mobilize personnel to provide security cover for the meeting, rally or procession.”
The above provisions are clear and unambiguous, carrying with it several legal implications. First is that the law recognizes the right of citizens to hold a public meeting, rally or procession along the highway or any other place that the general public has access to, such as Gani Fawehinmi Park in Lagos, the Unity Fountain in Abuja and other locations across Nigeria. The second implication of section 83 above is the binding obligation imposed upon the Police Force to provide security for such public meeting, rally or procession. When politicians gather to hold their primary elections in public places, the government grants them protection through massive deployment of security. That being the case, members of the public also have the right to demand for and be granted police protection for their public meetings, rallies and processions. Where the government is opposed to any civil protest, it is indirectly stating that it has no capacity to comply with the provisions of the law, which is an impeachable offence, for any government to outlaw the right of citizens to protest. It was the protest of Jewish women against the German pogrom that led to the United Nations Charter. That Charter is replete with several declarations of the rights of citizens to express and channel their grievances to the highest authority in the land. Ditto for the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights. The Catholic Church used to be the only Christian organization in the whole world. It was the protest of some of their members that led to the establishment of other denominations. It was the constant and relentless protests of our forefathers that led to the independence of Nigeria from the British colonialists. Pray, if Nigeria itself is a child of protest, how can anyone wake up in 2024 to prevent Nigerians from protesting? It just will not work.
I appreciate the legitimate concerns expressed as to the possibility of the protest being hijacked by unscrupulous persons. From my own personal experience, the intention of protesters is always to achieve a peaceful and violence-free gathering but along the line, and because the government is usually uncomfortable with such protests, hoodlums are sponsored to invade the gathering. In some cases, the government sponsors rival groups to counter the protests or in very desperate situations, the government will organize the hoodlums to scatter the protest. In one of such protests that I was part of, we summoned courage to confront the hoodlums since we had a large crowd with us. They took to their heels upon sensing our collective determination to resist them, but we were able to apprehend some of them who were not so fast in their paces. Upon interrogation, it turned out that they were directly recruited by operatives of the secret service, working directly for the state. What the government should do in this case is to open the avenue for dialogue with the organizers of the proposed August Protest, to discuss the modalities of their outing and how to provide adequate security. On the part of the organizers of the protest, there is need for thorough re-appraisal of the proposed protest. Why call it A Day of Rage? The theme alone is suggestive of an intention to cause havoc and mayhem. If the purpose is to draw attention to the dire consequences of the economic policies of the government, then the protesters should do their best not to constitute themselves into any gathering that will hurt the same economy. Relating with the mass destruction of public infrastructures that followed the hijack of the #EndSARS protests, it is expected that the government will be concerned with any gathering that is actuated by and meant to vent rage.
Let me speak to President Tinubu on the point of the right of citizens to protest. Against the clear provisions of sections 8 and 9 of the Constitution, the government of Lagos State under his tenure as governor, created Local Council Development Areas. It was a legitimate protest by the then Governor Tinubu against the lopsidedness of the touted Federation. President Tinubu protested against the leadership style of Afenifere and later founded the Action Congress, fashioned after the ideals and philosophies of the Action Group of Chief Obafemi Awololo. In 2012, President Tinubu then as part of the opposition group held the federal government to ransom through public protests that lasted for days, in resistance to the proposal by the government of Dr. Goodluck Jonathan to remove fuel subsidy. In 2023, President Tinubu then as a presidential aspirant of his party, furiously protested the attempt to sideline him through his famous Emilokan Declaration in Abeokuta, openly chastising then President Muhammadu Buhari whom he termed as a weeping President. That act of courage took him to Aso Villa where he sits today to preside over the affairs of Nigeria. The heavens did not fall then and there is no reason for the same President Tinubu to threaten fire and brimstone now.
We cannot have a country where leaders lord it over the people all the time, to the extent of becoming intolerant of common civil protests. You cannot beat a child and at the same time ask him not to cry. In our case, President Tinubu is beating Nigerians with his wobbling economic policies which have imposed mass hunger, poverty and suffering on the people. Yet, the President does not want them to cry. Let the protests hold, let the government sit with the protesters and agree on modalities, let the protesters go back to the drawing board to retool the theme of the protests and by that allow our constitutional democracy a chance to grow. In the words of the President, ‘Let the People Breathe’!
