The convener of the Take it Back Movement, Omoyele Sowore, has slammed the police authorities across the country over the treatment of protesters during the demonstration on Monday.
Naijaonpoint reports that the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) had asked the protest organisers to shelve it, citing the celebration of the National Police Day.
However, the protesters ignored the warning of the police and took to the streets to register their displeasure over some of the policies of the Federal Government.
In Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, the situation turned feisty as police officers reportedly beat up some of the protesters and fired tear gas in a bid to disperse them.
In an interview on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Monday, Sowore, while expressing displeasure over the treatment meted out to some of the demonstrators and calls for the halting of the protest, flayed the police, describing their action as disrespect for human rights.
Sowore, the 2023 presidential candidate of the African Action Congress (AAC), claimed that the protesters were attacked unprovoked and that the police were intolerant.
He said, “Today was the day the police ought to have proven that this is a police for the people. If there was a professional test that could be conducted, it is what we did today, and they failed terribly at it.
“Look at how they performed today – woefully again. They attacked us unprovoked. They are intolerant. They have no respect for human rights. There were three persons arrested today – one of them a journalist. They were made to lie down in a drainage. They fired tear gas at them. They beat them silly with the planks attached to their placards.”