Heavy deployment of security forces, notably, the Police, Department of State Security Services (DSS) officials foiled planned “symbolic” protest by human rights activist, Omoyele Sowore and his group members, at the headquarters of Dunamis International Gospel Centre, Abuja, on Sunday.
Alternatively, the protesters, apparently determined to register their message restrategized and moved to the another branch of the church located at the Galadimawa axis of Abuja (around Sun city estate) to carry out the “symbolic” protest.
The planned protest by Sowore and his group members was to register to discontent with the prolonged detention of their friends/colleagues who were arrested last Sunday when they appeared in the church with t-shirt with #BuhariMustGo inscription on it.
Damilare Adenola, one of the protesters and close associate of Sowore, confirmed to newsmen, that they converged at the church premises on Sunday morning for the planned protest but were frustrated by heavy presence of security forces.
Damilare said: “We were roughly malhandled by the security forces at the church, to the point that they wanted to arrest some of us. We had to quickly restrategized with wisdom and move to the Galadimawa branch of the church to carry out the protest.
“We asked them to convey our message to the Senior Pastor of the Church, Dr. Paul Enenche, which they assured us that they would do. We also informed them that if our detained Comrades are not released by the end of next week, we would picket their churches across FCT.”
On Friday, Sowore announced that DSS and Pastor Enenche have been dragged to court over prolonged/unlawful detention of five protesters who were arrested at the Dunamis church headquarters in Abuja, two Sundays ago for holding a symbolic protest.
Sowore confirmed that the protesters, Emmanuel Larry, Henry Nwodo, Samuel Gabriel, Ben Manasseh and Anene Udoka, attended a church service at the Dunamis church in Lugbe, Abuja, with T-shirts inscribed with “Buhari Must Go”.
He stated that since the unfortunate event, the detained young people have been denied access to their lawyers and close family members even when they have not committed any offence known to the laws of Nigeria.
Sowore maintained that the arrest and continued detention have no basis in law and was a contravention of the fundamental human rights to freedom of expression, assembly and movement of the detainees as guaranteed under sections 39, 40, 41, respectively, in the Nigerian constitution and other international conventions and treaties to which Nigeria is a party to.
He confirmed that a group of lawyers have filed for the enforcement of the fundamental human rights of the detained persons in a joint suit involving the DSS who is holding them illegally in custody, DSS Director General and Pastor Paul Enenche, who handed them over for arrest have been joined in the lawsuit.
He, thus, called on the DSS to immediately and unconditionally release the detained protesters, insisting that protest remains lawful and democratically permitted in Nigeria.
He accused Pastor Enenche of colluding with DSS to unleash injustice and terror on the five protesters.
He said: “It’s obvious that the Church and the Pastor are accomplices in this unfortunate event, hence the planned symbolic protest on Sunday.”
He confirmed that the group’s representatives met with the Senior Pastor of the church, Dr. Enenche, last Monday, a day after the incident, and they had extensive discussion which centred how to secure the unconditional release of the detainees.
He added: “We secured an assurance from the church leadership that the detained friends would be released. But that has not been done. Rather, the church continued to exonerate itself from the action of the DSS even when it was obvious with pictorial and video evidences that they were involved.”