The youths were arrested at Dunamis International Gospel Centre, Abuja during the church’s Sunday service.
The Coalition for Revolution (CORE) has asked the Department of State Services (DSS) to release the five youths that were arrested for wearing #BuhariMustGo branded shirts.
The youths were arrested at Dunamis International Gospel Centre, Abuja during the church’s Sunday service.
The church security aides were said to have arrested the youths and handed them over to the DSS, but the church denied having a hand in their arrest.
CORE, in a statement on Saturday by Baba Aye and Gbenga Komolafe, Co-conveners of the movement, also condemned the arrest of Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) leader, Nnamdi Kanu.
The Nigerian government had in June 2021 announced Kanu’s arrest and extradition to Nigeria to continue facing trial.
He was subsequently arraigned before Binta Nyako, a Judge of the Federal High Court in Abuja.
Kanu is facing charges bordering on treasonable felony instituted against him at the court in response to years of the campaign for the independent Republic of Biafra through IPOB.
He was granted bail in April 2017 for health reasons but skipped bail after flouting some of the conditions given to him by the court.
“The authoritarian regime of Maj Gen Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) seems hellbent on establishing full-blown totalitarian rule in Nigeria. It continues to violate civil and political rights with impunity,” CORE said in a statement.
The statement partly read, “The arrest of five youths for wearing “Buhari Must Go” T-shirts to a church is absurd. The arrest of 47 unarmed persons participating in a peaceful ethnic-nationalist demonstration for self-determination and refusal to grant them bail is equally repressive.
“And the “arrest” of Nnamdi Kanu of the Independent Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) smacks of the same cloak and dagger attempt to abduct Umaru Dikko from London in 1984 when a military junta led by the same Muhammadu Buhari held Nigeria in a vice grip of state terror on the citizenry.
“We realize that these are acts to curtail justified and popular anger due to the APC’s failure as a ruling party. But we will not submit to these reactionary attacks.
“The regime has failed on each of the three pillars of empty promises on which bases it came to power. The economic hardships of poor working people have worsened, corruption stinks to the high heavens under APC as much as it did with the PDP, and assurances of bringing the war with Boko Haram in the northeast have been replaced with the excruciating reality of generalized insecurity across the country.
“The APC regime’s deceit of “change” has revealed itself for what it is. We can stop this monster and the system it represents only by fighting against every infraction of injustice it metes out to us. This includes demanding justice, as is the case for over a hundred people killed during the #EndSARS protests.
“It is in this sense that the Judicial Panels of Inquiry into SARS-related killings is of utmost importance. The regime's lies about the extent of that dastardly demonstration of state terrorism have been torn aside at the Lagos State panel.
“Evidence of the killing of at least 98 people has been presented to the Lagos State panel, with autopsy reports backing these. But, while the judicial process is still ongoing, the panel has declared that it is winding up. According to the chair of the panel, Doris T. Okuwobi, this is at the order of the presidency. All the panels of inquiry on SARS across the country are to wind up and submit their reports to the National Council of State by this month. Consequently, the Lagos panel intends to wind up proceedings by 19 July, despite tons of unresolved cases before it.
“It is now clear that the government set up the panels as a mere token to appease mass anger. It is not interested in justice because its hands are covered with the blood of slain Nigerians in the first place. But these panels have now been used for exposé after exposé, and the regime wants to silence the people. We say a loud no to this tampering with justice and continued reign of injustice in the land.”