Amnesty International has condemned what it described as “arbitrary” detention of five persons, by the Nigerian police for wearing t-shirts captioned ” Tinubu Must Go”, in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State.
In a statement on Tuesday, the rights group called for their immediate release, insisting that the right to express political opinion was not an exclusive rights of the supporters of the ruling All Progressive Congress, APC.
“The authorities must release all of them now and drop this plan to put them through a sham trial based on bogus charges. The right to show and express political opinion is not exclusive to only one political party.”
According to Amnesty International, Baba Aji Gremami, Mustapha Abba Yemen, Abacha Mohammed Ali, Adam Umar Gubio and Abdulhamid Mohammed, were hurriedly remanded in prison on a “bizarrely” accusation of “the intent to cause breach of public peace” simply for wearing a t-shirt with a message of peaceful political dissent.
“Asserting political opposition is part of human rights.” the statement said.
“Clearly, the intention of this reign of repression in Borno state appears to be the selective use of state powers to curtail the opposition in the political space. It is sadly creating a toxic climate of fear, that is contrary to the democratic principles of freedom and justice.”
The right group accused the Borno State government of carrying out a repressive arrests, warning against the use of state power to unleash punitive measures on political opponents.
“Borno state government and the police have increasingly been carrying out repressive arrests and detentions targeting opposition political parties and their supporters.
“Authorities in Borno state have resorted to the familiar playbook of using the law to criminalize peaceful dissent and silence opposition. The government of Babagana Umara Zulum must not engage in restricting dissent and unleashing the punitive power of the state on political opponents.”
