Human rights activist Omoyele Sowore has alerted that Nigerians should expect the worst human rights abuses at higher level in the country, especially now.
He said those who are in power of Nigeria now are the same politicians, who infringed on the rights of Lagos people, at will and nothing happened.
Sowore spoke at the Human Rights Media Parley Agenda 2023, organised by Amnesty International, in Lagos, on Thursday.
He said politicians are most breachers of human rights and that, ”
“I’m talking about the current occupants of the Aso Rock and what is more difficult, real, is that they understand human rights to the point that they can violate your rights without you knowing it.
“These people who are in Aso Rock now used to be human rights fighters. Supposedly, they are the ones who fought for the democracy.
“But when I was arriving here, I had a notification from my phone and that notification is the reason we should be worried. And it was reminding me that about a year ago, one woman in Abuja addressed the press that they want to burn down Amnesty International office, and till today nobody has questioned such a brazen attack on an institution like Amnesty International.
“It will not be different this time around. The moment we challenge people in power, we are likely to find even more ferocious attacks on both Amnesty International and human rights defenders.
“And you know right now, Nigeria has human rights defenders in short supply because most of the people that used to defend human rights have joined human rights violators in government.
“So we have to really work to protect human rights and human rights fighters and workers in Nigeria.
“Nothing I need to tell you that has not been spoken about. Already we have seen attacks on social and economic rights having school fees been increased, Lagos has not stopped from violating the rights of Lagos indigenes in terms of demolitions of houses.
“In fact some of our members that here from our organisation had to partake in protest against Lagos State government and they haven’t stopped and they would not stop because, like I said, the people who are now in government in Abuja are specialists in demolishing homes of poor people.
“So, whatever they are doing in Lagos will be done all over Nigeria very soon. And you are going to also see clampdown on human rights defenders, labour unions as you have seen.
“There is also going to be an increased level of what we don’t talk about; informal repression. And what is informal repression? It is that the state will not come physically to attack people. They will use their agents to attack people. So you might see, as they used to do in our days, using cult guys to attack stude ts leaders like what they did in Imo State where the Labour leader was brutalised right besides the Police Commissioner and they claimed that they didn’t know who beat him.
“He had to say it himself that were he not built differently, created differently, they would have broken his spinal cord. As we are speaking now there is a protest going in Abuja by a Labour movement. The government has deployed soldiers to ho and intimidate and possibly to attack peaceful protesters and they were supposed to be talking about democracy.
“I am now saying in general that you should prepare for more in terms of the change of tactics. The operating word is that the people who are now in power understand the human rights community very well. They used to work there before they went rogue. So be prepared a d we would be prepared on our part to continue to defend the rights of our people in this country, whatever it takes.”
Details later…
