Human Rights Activist and lawyer, Deji Adeyanju, has shed more light on the arrest, detention and arraignment of #EndBadGovernance protesters by President Bola Tinubu’s government.
OsunDailyNG recalls that the individuals were arrested during the #EndBadGovernance protests held from August 1 to 10.
Security operatives detained numerous participants, with plans by Inspector-General of Police, Olukayode Egbetokun, to arraign 119 protesters in two batches before Justice Obiora Egwuatu of the Federal High Court in Abuja.
The first group comprised 76 protesters, followed by a second batch of 43.
Public outrage erupted when reports emerged that four defendants collapsed during the arraignment of the first batch, with many noting that minors appeared malnourished.
The incident has drawn widespread criticism, fueling debates about the treatment of detained minors and the broader handling of protesters. Subsequently, President Tinubu issued a directive that the arrested individuals, many of whom were minors, should be released.
Adeyanju, who was directly involved in securing the release of the protesters, lampooned President Tinubu’s government over the kind of treatment meted out to the citizens.
The lawyer disclosed that he, alongside other legal practitioners, went from one office to another to beg for the release of the children before their arraignment.
Describing the Tinubu government as oppressive, Adeyanju asserted that the treason charges against the protesters were meant to discourage people from protesting.
“Have you seen any of them being arraigned in any court? Not one person since Tinubu has come on board—not one bandit has been put on trial, not one Boko Haram member is facing charges—but because he’s a chief protester himself, you know, he does not want any form of dissent or criticism; he does not want any form of opposition or protest,” Adeyanju noted during an interview with Daily Post.
How The Minors Were Arrested
Speaking on how minors were arrested during the protest and his involvement in their release, Adeyanju said: “Well, from day one when they came to Abuja, we started speaking to them, even before they arrived and were arraigned, we started speaking with their parents. Many of the minors were just in front of their homes when police came to raid.
“It was a joint task force of police, SSS, and others that came to raid. Anybody seen on-site was arrested. One of the minors, whose mother still called me even yesterday, said he was just sitting in front of where they were playing football. So immediately they heard police, everybody started running. You know it’s a Nigerian thing.
“And while they were running, police arrested both the adults and the minors—anybody they just saw on-site, they arrested. And subsequently, we started tracing where they were. Where had they been taken to? They said they were taken to Kaduna; some said Abuja.
“So we kept going back and forth between Force CID, Force headquarters, and the notorious Abattoir, where there is now IRT and the anti-kidnapping unit, and that was where we eventually found them. There is nobody in this country that we did not meet, except maybe, just maybe, the president and the vice that we didn’t beg to release these children to us.
“We kept at this for over two months; when it became obvious and clear to us that everyone was saying, “We had orders not to release them,” we had to go to court to force their arraignment.
“And if not for our actions—filing fundamental rights proceedings against the government and putting pressure on ensuring that the kids were arraigned—I can assure you that the kids would not have been arraigned 93 days later. We had gone to Justice Nwite’s court on three occasions to move applications, and the police intentionally would not come.
“And it was at the last adjourned date that we told the court that if the police do not come, the children must be set free. Only for us to be told that the police had just filed charges against the children and other protesters arrested in Kaduna and Kano. So, that was what led to the arraignment of the kids and the international embarrassment we saw in the open court on the day of the arraignment.
[With the recent arraignment of those minors and their eventual release, don’t you think the Tinubu government is a joke?]
Adeyanju said: “Their government is not just a joke; it’s a tyrannical regime. That’s the only way to define the government.
“You know, the irreducible minimum in a democracy is that the rights of citizens be respected. How can a protest be equated to a treasonable felony when bandits killed a traditional ruler in Sokoto and other parts of the country?
Have you seen any of them being arraigned in any court? Not one person since Tinubu has come on board—not one bandit has been put on trial, not one Boko Haram member is facing charges—but because he’s a chief protester himself, you know, he does not want any form of dissent or criticism; he does not want any form of opposition or protest.
“They feel that by slamming treasonable charges and trivializing the offense of treasonable felony, they will be able to scare people from protesting. We just finished protesting today in Abuja. How many treasonable felony charges can one government file in its 4-year term?
“The aim was not to prosecute the kids; the aim was to deter people from protesting. They want to send a clear message that if you try it, we will detain you for 93 days. If we can detain children, who are you that we will not detain? We will detain you, dehumanize you, and starve you.
“They denied us access to the children several times. They denied us legal representation in contravention of the constitution, and they denied their families and parents access to see them on numerous occasions.
“What else could be worse when it comes to the issue of torture? That’s torture. Denied them from feeding; that’s torture, simplicita. The government is just a huge joke; the government is no different from a military regime. There’s no difference.
“Tell me, even Abacha did not arrest or arraign children in open court. This president (Tinubu) fled the country when Abacha was looking for him, he didn’t want to be arrested. Today, he is the one arresting children and putting them on trial for treasonable felonies while bandits roam freely across the country. Bandits operate for 7, 8 hours unchallenged in most parts of the country.
“Look at Kaduna; they’ve ceded most parts of Kaduna to bandits. Sokoto, Kebbi, and Zamfara all have been ceded to bandits. Kidnappers are having a field day in the country. Yet, these kids cannot protest bad governance.
“Kids protest bad governance, you arrest them, imprison them, starve them, and slam them with treasonable felony charges, then parade them in front of the camera before the whole world.”
Who To Be Blamed For The Arraignment Of The Minor
The lawyer added: “The president (Tinubu) is the person to blame and nobody else, because the buck stops at his table. Every day, the president gets security reports, so you want to tell me that for 93 days, the president did not get any report that minors were arrested from Kano or Kaduna?
The president wants to feign ignorance that when the first protesters were arraigned before Justice Nwite, he did not know. With all the noise we kept making that minors were in custody, will the president say he did not know? Of course, the president is to blame because he gave the order for people to be arrested during the protest.
When he said people should come forward so he could meet them, once the protest stopped, did you see him making any effort to reach out to them anymore? The only step taken was to arrest and lock everybody up. The president is to blame and no one else.
From what you have said, it seems the Tinubu government has failed. So, who do you think Messiah Nigeria needs?
For me, we should not be talking about crises but rather about all stakeholders coming together. Tinubu and the APC are the common denominators and enemies of Nigeria. At this point, it should not be about who is better.
No, all political stakeholders should come together to fight the APC government and Tinubu. They should provide credible opposition; look at the recent U.S. election, where the opposition united against the Democratic Party.
All critical stakeholders rallied around Trump because they knew there was no third-party distraction in the U.S., and that’s why everyone knows what they are doing. Doyin Okupe, who was supporting Peter Obi today, is now supporting Tinubu.
Such distractions must be avoided in 2027 if they want to stand a chance. Whether they will have any chance with the “Tinubu-INEC collaboration” is another matter; as I humorously said after the U.S. election, INEC could have still saved Kamala because what INEC can’t do does not exist, and I stand by the notion that INEC is one of our major problems in this country. Why do I say INEC is a problem? Since 1999 till date, people have been snatching ballot boxes, buying votes, and inflicting harm on voters and party agents, yet not one person has been put on trial by INEC.
So, INEC and our security agencies, which enable electoral malpractice, are our main problems. Many Nigerians will tell you that even the legal profession is complicit, but if INEC were credible and truly independent, we would have fewer problems.
Since we already know that the majority of the people in INEC are politicians and card-carrying members of APC—we have Prof. Gumus from Bayelsa, with whom we are in court.
We have been saying that this woman cannot be an INEC National Commissioner because she is an APC card-carrying member from Bayelsa; the majority of INEC commissioners are APC members.
The only way to prevent INEC from continuing as it is would be to allow all political parties to nominate representatives to INEC.
If PDP nominates ten people, APC, LP, and others should also nominate the same, then the president can have the discretionary power to present the INEC Chairman. This would make it impossible for INEC to rig elections for any particular party because all critical stakeholders would be at the table, and they would never agree on a consensus for rigging.
“You will never have INEC rigging for a particular party, and by not doing this, we continue deceiving ourselves. INEC commissioners are politicians; they are not independent-minded people.”
