CDHR rejects ban on protests in Abuja

The Committee for the Defence of Human Rights (CDHR) has rejected the blanket ban on all forms of protests in the Federal Capital Territory by the FCT Police Command, saying it is extremely retrogressive, illegal, unconstitutional, unfortunate and therefore unacceptable.

President of CDHR, Malachy Ugwummadu, a lawyer, in his reaction to the ban said the desire and insistence of the FCT Police Command to extract applications and/approvals from any person or group intending to protest in the FCT, drudged up the old status of Nigerians in relation to their fundamental rights under the colonial rule of Great Britain.

The primary motive of the Colonial masters through the Public Order Act, he said, was to continually subjugate the views of Nigerian political activists in resisting colonialism and whittle down their capacities to advance the struggle for independence.

According to him, this is no longer the law both from the standpoint of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (1999) under Sections 39, 40 and 41 and by virtue of the Court of Appeal decision in ANPP vs. IGP as well as a recent Federal High Court (Abuja Division) decision on the same issue.