Invasion of SERAP Office: Sani Abacha’s spirit has taken over Nigeria’s presidential villa – Lawyer

In an apparent rebuke of Monday’s invasion of SERAP’s office, Abuja, by Nigeria’s secret police, SSS, a human rights lawyer, Inibehe Effiong, has said that the spirit of the late military dictator, Sani Abacha, has taken over the nation’s presidential villa.

The officers were “unlawfully occupying SERAP’s office in Abuja, asking to see our directors,” SERAP wrote on X.

“The spirit of Sani Abacha has taken over the presidential villa,” Mr Effiong wrote on X on Monday in his reaction to the SSS’ action.

“The invasion of SERAP’s Abuja office by the SSS is unacceptable. The President Tinubu’s regime must end the attack on dissent,” he said in another post on the microblogging platform.

SERAP is a prominent civil society group in Nigeria known for its campaigns for good governance and respect for human rights.

The invasion of SERAP’s office, almost simultaneously with the arrest of the President of the Nigeria Labour Congress, Joe Ajaero, by SSS operatives on Monday morning in Abuja at the Nnamdi Azikiwe Airport Abuja while trying to board a flight to the UK for a Trade Union Congress gathering.

PREMIUM TIMES reported that Mr Ajaero has been summoned twice by the police in recent weeks over allegations surrounding a Briton, Drew Povey, who owns a bookshop at the NLC headquarters in Abuja.

The Nigerian government claims that the Briton was spearheading a plot to overthrow President Bola Tinubu. He has denied the allegation and urged the government not to criminalise peaceful protests in Nigeria.

The lawyer, Mr Effiong’s comment about Abacha’s spirit taking over the presidential villa is an allusion to President Tinubu as a dictator.

The late Abacha, an army general, overthrew Nigeria’s interim national government in 1993 and ran the most repressive regime in the nation’s history, suppressing the media and jailing his critics.

During the infamous era, Moshood Abiola, the winner of the annulled 12 June 1993 presidential election, was jailed for treason. He later died in custody. Former military ruler Olusegun Obasanjo was also jailed for treason. The Abacha regime also jailed a former army general, Shehu Yar’Adua, who later died in custody.

Amnesty International Nigeria on Monday “strongly condemned” Mr Ajaero’s arrest. “The labour union leader must be immediately and unconditionally released,” the rights group said.