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Court orders Nigerian govt to pay lawyer N1m, apologise over disruption of #RevolutionNow protest

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Court orders Nigerian govt to pay lawyer N1m, apologise over disruption of #RevolutionNow protest

The Federal Government has been ordered to pay a Lagos based lawyer, Olukoya Ogungbeje the sum of N1 million for using the police to disrupt the August 5, 2019 #RevolutionNow in Lagos.

The order was handed down on Monday by Justice Maureen Onyetenu of the Federal High Court sitting in Lagos.

The court also ordered the Federal Government to tender a public apology to the applicant in three national daily newspapers.

The applicant, Ogungbeje had told the judge that he participated in the #RevolutionNow protest and was, alongside other protesters, tear-gassed by security agents.

The judge upheld Ogungbeje’s argument that the disruption of the peaceful protest by the Federal Government, through the police, was “illegal, oppressive, undemocratic and unconstitutional.”

She also agreed with the applicant, who sued on behalf of himself and other protesters, that the Federal Government deprived them of their right to peaceful assembly and association, in violation of sections 38, 39 and 40 of the 1999 Constitution.

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The judge condemned “the mass arrest, harassment, tear-gassing, and clamping into detention” of the protesters.

It would be recalled that the publisher of SaharaReporters, Omoyele Sowore, had called for the protest slated for August 5, but was arrested in a dawn raid by the Department of State Services (DSS) on last August 3, 2019.

Ogungbeje had prayed the court to award N500m as general and exemplary damages against the Federal Government, DSS and the Attorney General of the Federation, but the court only awarded N1m.

The judge also upheld the defence of the DSS that it was not involved in the disruption of the protest.

In his affidavit, which he filed in support of the suit, Ogungbeje said when he was co-opted into the #RevolutionNow protest, as a lawyer, he checked the constitution and found that it was lawful.

He, however, said on getting to the take-off point of the protest in Lagos he security agents who barricaded the venue.

“I met agents and operatives of the respondents who had barricaded the venue of the peaceful protest for good governance in Nigeria.

“I was tear-gassed by agents of the respondents and the peaceful protest was forcefully disrupted by the respondents.

“I have been denied my fundamental constitutional rights of peaceful assembly and association by the respondents, without cause”, he said.

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