The Lagos state Commissioner of Police, CP Hakeem Odumosu, has issued a warning to Yoruba activist, Sunday Adeyemi popularly known as Sunday Igboho, against staging any rally in the state.
Igboho had recently declared intentions to organize a rally in Lagos to sensitize residents of the state on the need to support the call for the actualization of the Yoruba nation. The planned rally was slated for Saturday, July 3, at the Gani Fawehimi Freedom Park, Ojota area and other parts of the state.
At a press briefing on Thursday, July 1, the police boss insisted that the command would not allow any rally to hold in order to avoid a repeat of a total breakdown of law and order as witnessed in the hijacked EndSARS protest, last year.
In his words
“ Lagos State cannot afford to experience any security lapses, breakdown of law and order and threat to public peace at the moment, considering the negative effects and reoccurring agonies of the October 2020 violent #Endsars crisis that led to massive destruction of public and private facilities, while some Police personnel paid the supreme price. This is in addition to many Police stations, barracks and officers’ personal properties that were set ablaze during this period.
The Command is still going through those harrowing experiences. It will not be cajoled by the so-called organizers that the rally will be peaceful. That was the same slogan adopted by the organizers of the #Endsars protest that eventually snowballed into crises with attendant massive destruction of lives and properties. The Police will not submit to their antics”.
According to the police boss, intelligence gathered by the police indicates that one Elewe-omo, a transport Union leader in Ibadan, Oyo State, had perfected a plan “to attack organizers of the rally as a reappraisal attack on the death of one of his followers allegedly killed by one Sunday Igboho’s group during a similar rally organized in Ibadan, Oyo State sometimes ago”. He mentioned that some disgruntled elements had perfected plans to infiltrate the ranks of the protesters to hijack the opportunity to attack and loot properties of Lagosians.
”The command still reaffirms that on no account will any actual or rumoured activities including the said planned mega rally be allowed to lock down the state or hinder normal daily activities of the good people of Lagos State. The effect of this, if allowed to come to fruition, is better known than imagined on the security, traffic and economic activities of a cosmopolitan state, like Lagos.
It has also come to the knowledge of the command that the rally arranged to take place at the Gani Fawehimi Freedom Park, Ojota, Lagos, has been planned by some other yet-to-be-identified groups to simultaneously take place in LekKi Toll Gate, Ikoyi, Iyana-Ipaja, Ikeja, Surulere, Ikorodu and other areas.
This, if allowed, could be a fatal ground to anarchy. The cumulative effect of all these poses a threat to law and order in the State. The Command will not fold its hands and allow disgruntled elements to truncate the peace being enjoyed in the state”.
However, Igboho has since called off the rally in Lagos. He announced the decision after his Ibadan home was raided by DSS officials.
