No court notice received on Lagos protest restrictions – Activist

The National Coordinator of the Take It Back Movement, Juwon Sanyaolu, has said he was not served any court notice restricting the proposed protest in Lagos to the Gani Fawehinmi Freedom Park in Ojota and the Peace Park in Ketu.

The TIB is one of the organisations fronting the planned nationwide protest against hunger and economic hardships, scheduled to commence Thursday, August 1, to 10, 2024.

A Lagos State High Court, on Tuesday, restricted the proposed nationwide protest in Lagos to the two parks.

Justice Emmanuel Ogundare granted the exparte application filed by the Lagos State Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, Lawal Pedro.

The TIB leader, Sanyaolu, was listed as the defendant alongside Adamma Ukpabi and Tosin Harsogba (for Active Citizens Group); Hassan Soweto; Persons unknown, and the Commissioner of Police, Lagos State.

The judge granted the application by way of an interim injunction to restrict the defendants from converging and carrying out the proposed protests in Lagos from August 1-10 except in the two approved locations from 8 am to 6 pm.

While moving his application before the court, Pedro said there was a need to protect the critical infrastructures of the state and prevent an irreparable loss of lives and property as witnessed during the EndSARS protest in 2020, having been privy to notices by different interests who are for and against the nationwide protest.

But in an interview with The PUNCH on Wednesday, Sanyaolu said, “I am yet to be served, and to this end, I take this news as a rumour, and a joke taken too far! No court order can repress a people’s desire to be free,” he told The PUNCH.

He added, “I was neither served personally nor by any other means. So how do I know of the order or its content? How do I or any ‘unknown person’ as they claim, comply with what we have not seen?”

The Lagos Coordinator of the TIB, Adeyemi Taofeek, had in a statement reacting to the court judgement, asked the state to provide the protesters with buses to convey protesters from their point of convergence to the court-designated venues.

“The buses to be provided must be clean, safe and air-conditioned. The buses must arrive at these designated areas as early as 6 am and return protesters to their convergence points at 6 pm. Your failure to provide buses for the protesters means they (protesters) would begin the march/walk to the court-designated parks in the city daily for the duration of the #EndBadGovernance direct actions,” Taofeek wrote.

The State Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Gbenga Omotoso, when asked on Wednesday whether the state would accede to the protesters’ demands for buses, said a statement would be issued.