NigeriaAt60: SSS arrests, brutalises #RevolutionNow protesters in Osun

Operatives of the State Security Service (SSS) have attacked some #RevolutionNow protesters in Osogbo, the Osun State capital.

The protesters who converged in their hundreds at Nelson Mandela Park, Old Garage, Osogbo, were first dispersed with teargas around 9 a.m. on Thursday.

After they regrouped, some armed SSS officials again visited the scene and 11 protesters were arrested.

The arrested individuals were thereafter taken to the office of the SSS where they were briefly detained for over one hour. Those detained told PREMIUM TIMES that they were assaulted by the operatives.

One of them – Pedro Omolola – told our correspondent that she was repeatedly slapped by security officials while her colleagues were severely injured.

“The SSS officials came fully armed to disrupt the #RevolutionNow protest. Myself and 10 others were arrested and taken to their custody. We were brutalised and injured”.

“I was slapped repeatedly by officials alongside other protesters who were severely injured,” she recounted.

Another protester – Aliu Gbadebo – decried police molestation.

“No civil country uses police against its people”, he said.

When contacted, spokesperson of the SSS, Peter Afunanya, did not respond to PREMIUM TIMES calls and text messages on the incident.

This newspaper earlier reported that the Coalition for Revolution (CORE) – organisers of the #RevolutionNow protest – had vowed to hold mass action against poor governance in Nigeria on October 1. This is despite a warning by the police that the protest should not hold.

Nigerian law allows for peaceful protest and the court had ruled that a police permit was not necessary for peaceful protests.

The group which is led by a former presidential candidate and Sahara Reporters publisher, Omoyele Sowore, had its first major protest on August 5, 2019, and the second edition on the same date this year.