Monday 29 September 2014

Free Abdulmalik Sa’idu and Fejiro Oliver Now:




Stop attacks on democratic rights

Press Statement

The Campaign for Democratic and Workers Rights (CDWR) demands immediate end to the savage attacks on democratic rights of Citizens Abdulmalik Saidu and Fejiro Oliver. The former is currently languishing in detention for posting comments on the Facebook, which purportedly "insults" the person of Kastina State Governor, Ibrahim Shema. The latter is a journalist who is in the custody of the Directorate of State Security (DSS) for reports purportedly "malign" the person of the Niger State Governor, Alhaji Muhammed Aliyu.

According to media reports, the health of Abdulmalik Sa'idu, the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) student who was indefinitely detained on the orders of Kastina State Governor, Ibrahim Shema has deteriorated after being kept in a “dingy solitary cell.” Media reports confirm that Abdulmalik was arrested and detained at the Batagarawa Police Station after he received a call on August 28 instructing him to come to the government house for a message. On getting to the government house, he was promptly arrested, handcuffed and taken to Batagarawa Police Station just outside the state capital, Katsina, and detained on the orders of Mr. Shema’s aide-de-camp, Shehu Koko, a Deputy Superintendent of Police, DSP.

It is in the same breath of breach of democratic rights that the DSS Niger State Command paraded Mr. Tega Sampson Oghenedoro (aka Fejiro Oliver) for allegedly blackmailing the Niger state government and others.
  
Fejiro Oliver was invited by the Secretary to State Government (SSG) Niger state and was subsequently arrested by the SSS on September 19, at Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport Abuja via Asaba Airport.

According to media reports Sampson was arrested because he was in possession of a document on corrupt practices against Niger state government over accessed funds from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and had wanted to confirm from the government before going to press.

We demand the immediate release of these two ordinary Nigerians as well as adequate compensation for their unlawful detention. However, this incident has further underscored the need for trade unions and working people organizations to step up the fight for democratic rights as well as working towards a mass working peoples’ political alternative against the anti-poor neo-liberal capitalist government at all levels.


Chinedu Bosah
Publicity Secretary 

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