The Resource Centre for Human Rights and Civic Education (CHRICED) says the move by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to freeze accounts of #EndSARS promoters is a gross violation of rights.
CHRICED wondered why the apex bank did not use the same zeal to trace the financiers of Boko Haram, kidnapping, and banditry.
Development Diaries understands that the CBN has obtained a court order freezing the accounts of 20 #EndSARS promoters till January 2021.
The order, which was obtained on 06 November, was pursuant to a motion ex parte filed by the CBN before a Federal High Court on 20 October.
The suit marked FHC/ABJ/CS/1384/2020 listed Bolatito Oduala, Chima Ibebunjoh, Mary Kpengwa, Gatefield Nigeria Limited, Saadat Bibi, Bassey Israel, Wisdom Obi, Nicholas Osazele, Ebere Idibie, Akintomide Yusuf, Uhuo Promise, Mosopefoluwa Odeseye and Adegoke Emmanuel as defendants.
Others include Umoh Ekanem, Babatunde Segun, Mulu Teghenan, Mary Oshifowora, Winifred Jacob, Victor Solomon, and Idunu Williams.
The banks where the accounts are domiciled include Access Bank, Guaranty Trust Bank, Fidelity Bank, First Bank, United Bank for Africa, and Zenith Bank.
‘Such a draconian and retrogressive move at a time the government claims it is listening to the demands of the protesters constitutes a brazen infringement on citizens’ rights as spelt out in the Nigerian Constitution’, CHRICED said in a statement signed by its Executive Director, Ibrahim Zikirullahi.
The civil society organisation (CSO) also said, ‘There is no mistaken the fact that the #EndSARS protests represent a culmination of citizens’ decades-long demand for an end to human rights abuses as represented by the brutal policing system which assails the dignity of the ordinary citizen.
‘Since the advent of Nigeria’s current democratic dispensation in 1999, the process of governance has not translated in better outcomes for citizens. Two decades after, the vast majority of Nigerians continue to wallow in extreme poverty, and terrible social conditions.
‘Nigerians continue to endure the reality of dilapidated health infrastructure, a very high rate of youth unemployment, a brutal policing system, which cannot guarantee security of lives [sic] and property, just as the education continues to experience unmitigated collapse and castration. These are the problems #EndSARS protests have brought to the fore.
‘The use of the instrument of peaceful protests to draw attention to the plight of citizens is not a criminal act. For us, therefore, the freeze order on the accounts of perceived protest leaders is a misuse of effort and state resources.
‘If the CBN used the same zeal and energy to trace the financiers of Boko Haram, kidnapping, banditry and the other urgent challenges to national security, it is possible those menaces would have been dealt with by now’.
Protests, with hashtag #EndSARS, were triggered by the alleged killing of a young man by operatives of Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) in Lagos on 03 October.
SARS, which was specifically set up to fight robbery and kidnapping, has long been accused of harassment, unlawful arrests, torture and killings.
The police unit has been dissolved but protesters are demanding a complete reform of the police force, and prosecution of erring police officers.
Source: CHRICED
Photo source: Pius Utomi Ekpei/AFP
