Thursday, 28th March 2024
To guardian.ng
Search

#RevolutionNow: Wike kicks against protest in Rivers

By Dennis Erezi
05 August 2019   |   6:31 am
Rivers State governor Nyesom Wike Sunday said the organisers of #RevolutionNow are not allowed to hold any anti-government protest in the state. "Rivers State does not subscribe to what the RevolutionNow protest represents and Rivers State is not part of the protest," Wike said in a statement. "Security agencies in the state should arrest anybody…

Rivers State governor Nyesom Wike Sunday said the organisers of #RevolutionNow are not allowed to hold any anti-government protest in the state.

“Rivers State does not subscribe to what the RevolutionNow protest represents and Rivers State is not part of the protest,” Wike said in a statement.

“Security agencies in the state should arrest anybody involved in the RevolutionNow protest and also take all necessary steps to prosecute such persons.”

The convener of the protest and publisher of SaharaReporters Omoyele Sowore was arrested in the early hours of Saturday for alleged inciting a regime change.

Sowore, the presidential candidate of the African Action Congress in Nigeria’s last general elections, said he was aware of security agencies monitoring him hours before he was eventually arrested.

The Department of State Services said Sowore’s call for a nationwide protest against the government threatened public safety, peaceful co-existence and social harmony.

“These threats include threats of sabotage, threats of subversion, threat of terrorism and, of course, ethnic agitations, separatist agitations, economic sabotage and others,” DSS spokesman Peter Afunanya said on Sunday.

“If we are operating as a responsible security organisation and someone is calling for revolution in Nigeria, we must understand the meaning of revolution.”

But the organisers of the protest insisted it will hold as scheduled.

A spokesman for the organisers Kunle Wizeman Ajayi said the arrest of Sowore was not surprising.

Ajayi accused the Nigerian government of bribing social media influencers to discredit the purposes of the protest.

“A failed government cannot use force to make the mass of people to accept its failure,” he said.

SaharaReporters published by Sowore said on Sunday that Wike and the ruling All Progressives Congress planned to hijack the protest scheduled to hold on Monday.

SaharaReproters said Wike’s directive to security agents to arrest in the state to “arrest anybody involved in the #RevolutionNow protest” is a ploy to disrupt the protest.

0 Comments