HURIWA cautions police against disrupting planned protests
Former Jigawa State Governor, Sule Lamido, has called for the recognition and honouring of Prof. Humphrey Nwosu, the man who supervised what is widely regarded as Nigeria’s freest and fairest election on June 12, 1993.
In an interview with The Guardian ahead of the June 12 Democracy Day Celebration, Lamido expressed concern that while the late MKO Abiola had been rightly honoured with a GCFR and a national holiday commemorating June 12, the man who midwifed that electoral process, Prof. Nwosu, remained largely unacknowledged.
For the second time in two days, specifically on March 27, 2025, the Senate at plenary had rejected a motion seeking to rename the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) headquarters after the late Professor Humphrey Nwosu, the chairman of the defunct National Electoral Commission (NEC), who oversaw the historic June 12, 1993 presidential election.
Earlier on Wednesday, in a fierce debate that erupted on the floor of the Senate, some lawmakers had blocked a motion seeking to immortalise late Humphrey Nwosu.
Not deterred by the rejection, Enyinnaya Abaribe on Thursday came with a motion on recession, coming under Order 52(C), he represented the motion. The motion sought posthumous national honours for Nwosu, recognising his role in Nigeria’s democratic evolution. However, the proposal met stiff resistance, highlighting deep divisions over Nwosu’s legacy and whether his role in the June 12 election merited such an honour.
However, Lamido continued to support the motion. “Whatever anyone may say about him, June 12 would not have existed without Humphrey Nwosu.
“If you remove him from the configuration, the whole structure collapses. Who conducted the election? Who ensured it was free and fair? It was Nwosu. So why hasn’t he been honoured?”
MEANWHILE, the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has cautioned the police against disrupting a planned peaceful protest to commemorate the day.
The group, in a statement by its National Coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko, said the caution followed news reports from across the nation that past peaceful protests were turned into killing fields by the operatives of the Nigeria Police Force. He called on the Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Kayode Egbetokun, to stop his armed operatives from using lethal weapons to attack protesters unprovoked, because peaceful assembly is an integral aspect of constitutional democracy.
“Nigerians are again getting ready to participate in a nationwide peaceful protest to demand good governance and an end to the continuous cost of living crisis, corruption in government, police brutality, and to demand an end to extrajudicial killings of citizens by armed security forces. These protests are scheduled for June 12 this year.
“The actions of armed police operatives across Nigeria in which the operatives displayed crude tendencies to shoot and kill unarmed and peaceful protesters and the fact that the killers embedded within the Nigeria Police Force are never identified, prosecuted for these murderous offences, have not only perpetuated state-sponsored impunity but this action of always attacking peaceful protesters as if they are armed terrorists must stop,” he said.
