Former chairman of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), Chidi Odinkalu, has criticised the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) for clamping down on protests despite leveraging demonstrations to secure electoral victory in 2015.
Odinkalu spoke on Tuesday during a virtual event hosted by Global Rights, a non-governmental organisation (NGO), themed “Protest in Nigeria: A Democracy That Disqualifies Dissent.”
The discussion, held on the X platform to mark International Human Rights Day, explored the shrinking space for protests in Nigeria under the current administration.
Highlighting the fundamental nature of protests in a democracy, Odinkalu stated: “I’m not quite sure it’s within my pay grade to assess the performance of the Nigerian government on the right to protest. Partly because the right to protest is not given by the government,” Odinkalu said.
“It is a right that belongs to the people. What you do under the existing law and really in a republic is liaise with the state, notify the state, so that the state and its assets can lend you its assets for the purpose of protecting the protest, making sure that other people who wish to exercise similar rights can do so peacefully.”
He underscored that protests were pivotal to APC’s political ascent, noting that many key figures in the government, including President Bola Tinubu, were seasoned protesters before coming to power.
“Nigeria is currently led by people who specialised in protests over the years, from the president to several other people within his government.
“They protested their way to an electoral victory in 2015 as a political party, the APC, the All Progressives Congress. That’s for the benefit of the non-Nigerians in this conversation.
“And, you know, so to that extent, if you were talking about the past decade, the fact alone that people who were serial protesters came to power by political alternates is itself evidence that the right to protest in Nigeria, at least up to that point, was strong and reasonably well-respected.
“Not without some pushback, but reasonably well-respected and fruitful. Now, that said, it’s also the case that since then, since they came to power, they’ve done a heck of a lot to shut down the right to protest,” he said.
Odinkalu cited the Bring Back Our Girls movement, which played a significant role in mobilising public sentiment during the APC’s rise to power.
He lamented how the government subsequently suppressed those protests and restricted access to key protest venues in Abuja.
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