The Movement for a Socialist Alternative has condemned the arrest of #RevolutionNow protesters by security operatives and demanded their immediate release.
MSA in a statement by its spokesperson, Dagga Tolar, on Wednesday condemned the use of security agents to attack peaceful demonstrators in the country.
The statement reads, “We received an unwholesome report of the arrest of some of our members and other activists converging for a peaceful protest by men of the Department of State Services (DSS) today, 5th of August. We are aware that Dunnex Samuel, a member of the MSA and student leader at the Obafemi Awolowo University, along with Mandate, Oguntola Sunday and other protesters were whisked away to an unknown location by the DSS in Osogbo.
“In Abuja, protesters converging for a similar protest have been arrested by the score while violent force was employed to disperse other peaceful protesters, most of whom suffered serious injuries from this mindless application of force on lawful protesters. Similar reports have been received from Lagos, where protesters met the same dehumanizing violence in the hands of the Police and DSS men. We condemn this attack as part of the continuous descent of the country into a brutish state of military repression. It is completely unacceptable, and we enjoin all Nigerians interested in preserving this country’s hard-earned democracy to condemn this emboldened descent into a civilian-military dictatorship.
“The activists were converging for a protest called by the Coalition for a Revolution (CORE) to oppose unlawful police detention of citizens, economic hardship among other oppressive and anti-democratic tendencies of the President Buhari’s regime. It is an act of state terror, pure and simple, that these protesters were arrested for exercising their lawful rights to speak out loudly against the oppressive conditions obtainable across the country.
“We demand their immediate and unconditional release. We condemn this tradition of using the DSS to repress every lawful opposition to the oppressive regime of Muhammadu Buhari. Nigerians cannot have it, as the regime is suggesting, that they are a conquered people in their own country, who cannot express their dissatisfaction, no matter how peaceful, against the daily hardship and oppression they suffer in the hands of the capitalist hordes Buhari is representing.
“Once again, we call on everyone dissatisfied with the oppressive state of affairs in the country to join us in the strongest opposition to these arrests and brutalization of peaceful protesters, and call for their immediate and unconditional release.”
