Press Release: RELEASE WALE OKUNIYI & OTHERS 3rd May 2007
Security agents frustrated all attempts to hold pro-democracy and anti-rigging rallies billed for May Day on Tuesday 1st May 2007. Nigeria was turned into a police state for more than ninety six hours. This was made possible by the Inspector General of Police Sunday Ehindero who gave orders to the police ‘to use maximum force where necessary’, a euphemism for ‘shoot at sight’ order.
Even Ehindero’s ‘permission to stage rallies at designated points’ was turned into a booby trap as prospective participants were rounded up as they attempted to enter the ‘designated points’. Secret agents went into action four days before the D-Day picking up activists in their hotels and homes to ensure that the rally did not hold. About eighty activists were arrested on May Day alone including Wale Okuniyi, former president of the Lagos State University Students Union.
We of the Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC) condemn this wanton clampdown on pro-democracy activists. We demand the immediate and unconditional release of Wale Okuniyi and others arrested for planning or participating in the May Day rallies throughout the country. We remind the police that the law does not allow detention of suspects beyond 24 hours except in homicide and similar offences.
