Civil rights advocacy group, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has strongly condemned the Inspector General of Police, Mr. Mohammed Adamu, and the Nigeria Police Force “for physically tormenting and harassing civil rights campaigner and publisher of SaharaReporters, Mr. Omoyele Sowore, for no other offence order than carrying out peaceful protests.”

The rights group said the arrest of the activist confirms the intelligence it got before the New Year that the year 2021 will be tough for the organised community of civil rights campaigners in Nigeria because the Federal Government will unleash what it called “scorched-earth anti-activists policies whose components will include forced disappearances, armed abductions and mass arrests of human rights activists.”

The rights group said the reported threats to the lives of Mr. Sowore and his associates by armed police from the Federal Capital Territory’s command who rounded the protesters up during their solemn Crossover Civil Rights Candle Lights procession was not just unconstitutional and illegal but amounted to the violation of the rights to religious freedoms, freedoms of movement, association and peaceful Assembly as guaranteed by Chapter 4 of the Nigeria’s Constitution.

“This Nigerian Police Force has indeed refused to heed to the voice of reason by decisively changing their terrible modus operandi as a force for evil and as anti-democratic reactionary elements.

“The Nigerian Police Force needs to be tailored and refocused to confront and combat the widespread violence tearing apart the fabrics of our nation state and join the men and officers of the Armed Forces of Nigeria to battle the expanding frontiers of terror attacks in the Northeast and the Northwestern Southern Kaduna State.

“The Police should learn to respect the constitutionally protected and guaranteed fundamental freedoms of the citizens such as rights to civil and peaceful assembly and protests.

“What Sowore and his associates did by assembling in Gudu junction in the nation’s capital has in no way constituted any threats to the national security interests of Nigeria.

“We call on President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration to order that the Police should immediately release unconditionally the publisher of SaharaReporters, Mr. Sowore, and his associates,” HURIWA said in a statement on Saturday.

In the media statement endorsed jointly by its National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, and the National Media Affairs Director, Ms Zainab Yusuf, HURIWA said that there are an abundant of supporting facts to show that President Buhari-led administration will in this 2021 seek to further tighten the noose around the determination of social critics and human rights activists to speak out loud and clear against the rise in the violent abuses of the constitutionally protected and guaranteed fundamental freedoms of the citizens.

HURIWA said President Buhari encourages his loyalists and followers to verbally attack civil rights activists only for expressing their own opinions on some notorious and toxic policies of the President Muhammadu Buhari’s government that offends the norms and practices allowed under Constitutional democracy.

“From available empirical evidence, this federal government does not tolerate divergent thinking and opinions and to make matters worse, the Federal Government is in the habitual pastime of motivating and encouraging mushroom platforms set up by highly subjective and partisan religious and ethnic bigots to go all out to attack voices of dissent to the policies of the administration.”