Ajegunle People Protest against Police Brutality
Ajegunle People Protest against Police Brutality
Innocent people killed by the police (Click to enlarge)
By HT Soweto
On Tuesday 22 March 2016, Okada riders, activists, socialists and community people of Ajegunle made good their promise to stage a protest against the incessant cases of police brutality, extortion and brutal killings of innocent and poor Nigerians by the police.
Protesting police using okada and danfo as ATMs (Click to enlarge)
The immediate reason for the protest was the brutal killing of Saturday Hanson – an Okada rider and a father of five – who was knocked down on February 29, 2016 as a group of police men were chasing a commercial bus (Danfo) whom they intend to extort money from.
In order to stop the protest, the coordinator of the campaign and member of the Democratic Socialist Movement (DSM) – CWI in Nigeria, Comrade Moshood Oshunfurewa was arrested on Monday March 21 by the police. It took the intervention of comrades and supporters locally and internationally who bombarded the phone numbers of the Lagos State Commissioner of Police with calls and text messages for him to be released.
Okada riders at the protest (Click to enlarge)
The protesters under the Campaign Against Police Brutality, Extortion and Killing of Innocent Citizens (CAPBEKIC) – a coalition of different groups of okada unions/associations, APM, DSM, ERC and other community organizations – marched from 5 Kojo Lane, Arumoh street first to the family house of Late Saturday Hanson and from there to the Ajeromi and Ifelodun Local Government secretariats up to the final destination at Area B Police Command Headquarters at Apapa where the protesters submitted a petition addressed to the Inspector General of Police.
For a genuine police union (Click to enlarge)
The central demands contained in the petition are (1) the arrest and prosecution of the police men responsible for Hanson’s death (2) compensation for the family and scholarship for each of Hanson’s children one of whom just wrote UTME, (3) a complete halt to extortion and killings by the police, improvement in wages and (4) welfare of police and the need for a police union. More actions would definitely follow today’s protest.
Dagga Tolar, DSM NEC member, at the protest (Click to enlarge)
Forty (40) copies of Socialist Democracy, paper of DSM, were sold at the protest march