To a carpenter, the solution to any issue must be through hammer and nail. That explains the brutalities meted out on peaceful #Revolutionnow protesters last week by the Muhammadu Buhari’s junta. For a government that came to power on the back of being allowed to protest peacefully, Buhari’s administration has never hidden its disdain for dissenting voices and has constituted the biggest obstacle to Nigeria’s democratic advancement. Those who dared to speak out about the ills of the administration are hounded and thrown in jail. In Kaduna, youths who came out to protest the incessant killings by bandits and herdsmen were rounded up and thrown in prison while their killers were allowed a free pass, apparently to return and kill again.
But what is Buhari afraid of? He came to power promising sweeping reforms, improved economy and a vow to stamp out insecurity. However, none of those promises has been delivered less than three years to the end of his eight-year tenure. Instead, killing, rape and kidnapping have become the order of the day while the government continues to make huge investments in the mass production of poverty. No day passes without a revelation of mountains of sleaze under the government of the man who claimed to have integrity. Despite all these ills, Buhari has put more resources into making sure no one talks about them.
These dictatorial tendencies have to stop. The right to protest is enshrined in the constitution even though we are witnessing sustained attempts to trample on the same constitution by the same persons elected to protect it. This administration will likely go down as one that achieved nothing, excepting holding an expectant nation to ransom and treating dissenters with much disdain. But this is not new as Nigerian leaders have believed the led are capable of taking anything they dish out sitting down, an assault on democracy. If governors are not proscribing youth groups which is against Sections 39 and 40 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (As amended), and Article 11 of the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights Act, Cap A9, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004”, Buhari is using soldiers and police to crush peaceful protests.
On the other hand, Lai Mohammed is working assiduously hard to infringe on the rights to freedom of speech. This is despite the fact that Section 39()(a) of the 1999 Constitution protects the right of every Nigerian to freedom of expression. Half a decade ago, he relied on freedom of speech to launch one of the fiercest propaganda the country has ever seen, leading to the end of the then government of President Goodluck Jonathan. Presently, he thinks Nigerians do not deserve the same.
He had surreptitiously announced last Tuesday that the fine for hate speech had been increased from N500,000 to N5 million. Mohammed claimed the presidency was acting in the national interest, as the decision to increase the fine was approved to reposition the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) to perform its regulatory role better, mostly in the areas of political broadcasting, local content, coverage of emergencies, advertising, and anti-competitive behaviour. Understandably, fake news and hate speech has become common owing to the growth of electronic media but the government should not hide under an obnoxious bill like the Hate Speech Bill to infringe on the rights of the citizenry.
It is every Nigerian’s fundamental and constitutional right to protest and organize rallies. This right is guaranteed specifically in Section 40 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria which provided for and guaranteed this right when it stated inter alia that “Every person shall be entitled to assemble freely, and associate with other persons, and in particular he may form or belong to any political party, trade union, or any other association for the protection of his interests”.
It is an inalienable right that cannot be lightly taken away by anyone. When such rights are infringed on, every citizen of Nigeria has the right to head to the courts to ensure the enforcement of such rights.
The Public Order Act provides that the convener of a protest should obtain a licence from the police 48 hours before the actual date of the protest. The licence would only be granted if the protest is not likely to cause a breach of peace.
This position was challenged in the Court of Appeal in the case of ALL NIGERIA PEOPLES PARTY V. INSPECTOR-GENERAL OF POLICE (2008) 12 WRN 6, where the court ruled that the right to stage rallies and protests is a fundamental right and can be carried out without obtaining a police permit/licence. Buhari was a member of the ANPP which went to court to obtain the said judgement in 2008.
The insecurity in Nigeria has gone on for too long and Buhari seems incapable to address it. He has equally failed to rejig the nation’s security architecture yet he wants Nigerians to sit and do nothing about it.
Such public protests are the hallmark of a free, democratic society, whose logic demands that the voice of the people be heard by those in power and decisions be reached after proper discussion and consultation. For this, the right to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly are necessary. Any arbitrary restraint on the exercise of such rights shows the inability of the government to tolerate dissent. It shows not the propensity of people to riot but rather the incapacity of the government to discuss, deliberate or listen. An unreasonable limitation on protest is an affront to the very people in whose name a government is allowed to temporarily govern.
One must be grateful to the courts for having reiterated that the right to protest is a fundamental right. Democracies everywhere are founded on two core political rights. The first, the right of every citizen to freely elect their government and when dissatisfied with its performance, to vote it out of power in a legitimately held election. This remains the only proper constitutional procedure to get rid of a government and rightly so. Indeed, the peaceful transfer of power is one of the great strengths of democracies. But short of displacing it, and as long as it is done peacefully, any form of public action to challenge the government’s proposals or decisions is also constitutionally legitimate, forming the second core political right: to politically participate not only during but between elections.
The right to protest, to publicly question and force the government to answer, is a fundamental political right of the people. If so, one is left speechless at the way in which the Buhari’s government sidesteps issues, blocks reasonable questions, and wilfully obstructs any attempt to discuss.
Buhari’s administration must stop its dictatorial tendencies and end its assaults on peaceful protesters using security agencies. It must also end its attempt to stifle free speech through the activities of the minister of information and culture. Also, It must go beyond the lies it tells frequently and bring and end to incessant killings, rape and banditry. He must not only be seen as working but actually work. The service chiefs must be relieved of their duties since they seem incapable of dealing with the rising spate of killings.
The habit of taking decisions secretively, foisting them on an unprepared people and then, when challenged, to campaign in order to retrospectively justify its opaque, midnight decisions must stop.
