The Federal Capital Territory Police Command has denied attacking the October 1 protesters in Abuja.
This is contained in a statement by the Police Public Relations Officer, FCT police command, SP Josephine Adeh on Tuesday in Abuja, who noted that the operatives only took proactive measures to prevent looting, adding it was necessary to address the allegation following reports making the rounds that policemen attacked protesters at Utako Market in Abuja earlier Tuesday during the protest.
She urged the populace to disregard such misleading and mischievous information, stressing that the command was committed to ensuring the safety of the populace in the exercise of their civil rights.
Earlier reports said police officers on Tuesday fired teargas at protesters during the #FearlessInOctober protest over bad governance in Abuja.
The protesters had gathered at the Utako area in Abuja, the country’s Federal Capital Territory, FCT, waving the Nigerian Green-White-Green flag and banners with various inscriptions such as “EndBadGovernance”, “DiasporaVoting”, “EndHighLivingCosts”, amongst others but were dispersed by policemen.
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“The command wishes to categorically debunk the narrative, tagging it completely false and misleading.
“Acting on intelligence, the operatives only took measures to forestall miscreants who were taking advantage of the protest to loot shops in the market and as a result, extended focus to them.
“As a responsible agency, we could not stand by and allow traders to be robbed of their hard-earned money and belongings without intervening,” the statement added.
The October 1, 2024 protest, tagged: “FearlessInOctober”, was propagated on social media, months after the August #EndBadGovernance protests. The two demonstrations are synonymous in themes as aggrieved young people demand a reversal of petrol subsidy removal and electricity tariff increase.
Critics have faulted President Bola Tinubu’s twin policies of petrol subsidy removal and unification of the foreign exchange rates which many Nigerians believed were responsible for the unimaginable inflation and soaring living and energy costs in the country.
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