Temokun said while President Tinubu has been claiming to be defending democracy in Nigeria, security operatives have been preventing peaceful protesters from gathering.
A legal practitioner, Tope Temokun, has lambasted President Bola Tinubu's administration for saying one thing and doing the exact opposite.
Temokun said while President Tinubu has been claiming to be defending democracy in Nigeria, security operatives have been preventing peaceful protesters from gathering.
Civil society organisations including the Take It Back Movement have slated Wednesday, June 12, which is Nigeria's Democracy Day, for a nationwide protest tagged #WeAreHungry.
However, the lawyer said when he tried to join the protest in Akure, the Ondo State capital on Wednesday morning, he realised security agents had been stationed at the point of convergence to prevent the protest from holding.
June 12 is celebrated annually in honour of Chief MKO Abiola, whose election as President in 1993 was annulled by the military regime of Ibrahim Babangida.
Temokun in a statement on Wednesday said, "MKO Abiola has paid the ultimate price for this day. Now that the day, June 12, has been officially recognized as the National Democracy Day, the question that should bother the citizens is not whether there is a celebration of any anniversary, but whether there is truly democracy to be celebrated in the land.
"Ideally, today should be a day when the people should be allowed the freedom that democracy symbolizes, the freedom of speech and freedom of assembly, as in all the civilized parts of the world, public rallies and nonviolent protests are part and parcel of democracy.
"While the governments at various levels can chose their own subterfuge programs like gathering cronies together in hall for talk-show or symposia, to pretentiously discuss issues that relate to the memorials of June 12 and that regrettable annulment, the issues bedeviling the people today have crystallized beyond talk-show and symposia or the reverberation of the memories of how the winner of June 12 election was denied the presidency. The issue of volcanic hunger in the land today should take the center stage, it should form the rallying point for any engagement.
"But in historical irony, Tinubu government has detailed its monstrous errands, the DSS and the Police, to hunt democratic dissents and vocals around town for the purpose of arrest.
"I was out as early as 7am to join the mass protest organized by TIB ((Take It Back movement) for Ondo State to take place in Akure, with the Post Office Akure as a convergence point, but shockingly the State security agents have prevented those coming from Adeyemi College of Education in Ondo and Federal University of Technology Akure from gaining entrance to the venue, they were turned back and hunted to frustration.
"The national coordinator of TIB (Take It Back movement), Comrade Juwon Sanyaolu, has reportedly been arrested in Lagos since last night in the same bid to behead a people’s expression. It shows today is not respected as any democracy day, no pretence. The people must know this celebration is not real.
"This government is just scamming us.
If the government may chose how to celebrate democracy day, the people cannot be stifled or railroaded to join in forced smiles in hunger. There is hunger. Let the people talk. Let the people breathe.
"Allow the people the freedom to chose how to celebrate theirs and that is the only thing that can be democratic. If the people chose to be in street peacefully to protest against the biting hunger in the land, so be it. Can't Nigerians protest peacefully to express grievances like in other civilized nations of the world without the government criminalizing it, giving the dog a bad name in order to hang it?"
"I join my voice to other democratic forces across the country today to condemn the mass clampdown on the mass protest organized across the country and demand for the release of those who have been arrested in connection with June 12 anniversary mass protest and to warn all the security agencies, not to bespatter the face of this government the more with paintbrush of shame by these acts of clampdown here and there," he said.
"If the people cannot protest on democracy day, when can they?" Temokun asked.