The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has approached the Federal High Court in Lagos for an injunction protecting the #EndSARS protesters.
Joined in the suit as defendants are President Muhammadu Buhari, Inspector-General of Police Mohammed Adamu, Lagos State Commissioner of Police Hakeem Odumosu, and the Attorney General of the Federation Abubakar Malami.
The organisation prayed the court for an order protecting the protesters from harassment following attacks both by policemen and armed men.
SERAP is urging the court to issue an injunction restraining Buhari and the other respondents sending their agents to “harass, arrest, detain or in any other manner infringing on the fundamental rights of peaceful protesters in the EndSARS/SARSMustEnd / ReformPolice protests or any other peaceful protest in Nigeria.”
The group asked the court to declare that Buhari has no legal right “using members of the Nigeria Police Force through the 1st and 2nd respondents, the military and other paramilitary formations to intimidate, threaten, ‘arrest’, beat, harass, shoot, kill and detain unarmed peaceful protesters in the ‘EndSARS/‘SARSMustEnd’/‘ReformPolice.’”
It asked the court to declare such clamp down on protesters as a violation of sections 33, 34, 35, 36, 39, 40 and 41 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 and Articles 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10 and 11 of the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights [Ratification & Enforcement] Act Cap. A9, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004.
The organisation is also asking the court for “an order directing the Federal Government and Nigeria police to identify all perpetrators of brutality and human rights violations against peaceful protesters across the country, and bring them to justice without further delay.”
