Mr. Femi Falana, the Senior Advocate of Nigeria, has expressed concerns over police officers allegedly using expired tear gas canisters during last week’s demonstration against illegal demolitions and forced evictions in the Makoko waterfront neighborhood of Lagos.
Vanguard said he called the police’s actions unlawful, hazardous, and a violation of people’s freedom to peacefully gather.
Falana addressed at the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH) while visiting protesters who were hurt in the event.
The protest was put together by activists Comrade Hassan Taiwo, who is better known as Soweto, and Mr. Dele Frank. Its goal was to get the Lagos State Government to pay attention to reports of illegal demolitions and forced evictions in coastal communities.
At first, the protest was peaceful, but it is said that it got violent when police used tear gas at close range.
Human rights groups and civil society organizations have since condemned the action, which hurt several demonstrators.
Mr. Adedeji Hassan, a Burns and Plastic Nurse at LASUTH, told Falana about the status of Mrs. Kafayat Muftaudeen, one of the injured protestors.
Hassan explained that Mrs. Muftaudeen, who had a bad leg injury, was being sent home but would keep getting care by having her wounds dressed regularly and going to the hospital once a week until she had surgery.
“She is well enough to go home and will come to the hospital once a week for dressing,” Hassan said, adding that she would subsequently have skin grafting done once the wound had healed.
He said that the discharge had nothing to do with money and that recuperation would be best managed at home with medical monitoring.
Hassan also said that another protester who was hurt during the event and whose injuries were shown on CNN had been released.
Falana called the injuries he saw strange and scary in response to what he saw.
He added that in more than 40 years of going to protests all around the country, he had never seen teargas canisters hurt anybody this badly.
Falana said, “The injury I have seen is not normal,” which suggests that the operation may have used old teargas canisters.
The senior lawyer highlighted that the 1999 Constitution protects the right to free speech and peaceful assembly. He also said that Nigerians don’t need police permission to protest.
He remembered the Court of Appeal’s ruling in All Nigeria Peoples Party v. Inspector-General of Police, which said that citizens have the right to protest peacefully and called police permit restrictions a remnant of colonial control.
Falana says that the Police Establishment Act merely says that people who are organizing a protest must tell the police, who are then required to keep the peace.
He claimed that the organizers followed the law because police officers calmly led the demonstrators from Ikeja Under Bridge to the Alausa Secretariat.
He said things changed when no government official came out to get a letter written to the Lagos State Governor. He also added that the police eventually used tear gas on the demonstrators because they thought the songs were unpleasant.
Falana said that singing rude or insulting songs is not against the law in Nigeria. He also said that public officials must be able to handle criticism in a democratic country.
He told the government to learn from what happened and protect people’s basic rights. He also warned against using force to stop peaceful protests.
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