{"id":77020,"date":"2025-10-21T15:34:16","date_gmt":"2025-10-21T15:34:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/?p=77020"},"modified":"2025-10-21T15:34:16","modified_gmt":"2025-10-21T15:34:16","slug":"farotimi-blasts-police-judiciary-over-protest-clampdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/2025\/10\/21\/farotimi-blasts-police-judiciary-over-protest-clampdown\/","title":{"rendered":"Farotimi Blasts Police, Judiciary Over Protest Clampdown"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Onilede Titi Faith<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Civil rights lawyer Dele Farotimi has accused the Nigeria Police Force and the judiciary of undermining citizens\u2019 constitutional rights to peaceful protest, saying Nigeria is \u201conly pretending to be a democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Speaking on Channels Television\u2019s The Morning Brief on Tuesday, Farotimi said citizens do not need police approval to hold protests, stressing that the police should provide protection, not authorisation.<\/p>\n<p>He condemned the police\u2019s use of force to disperse Monday\u2019s #FreeNnamdiKanu protest in Abuja, led by activist Omoyele Sowore, describing it as a violation of democratic norms.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s unheard of that citizens in a democracy must seek permission from their employees, the police to gather peacefully,\u201d he said, accusing the judiciary of enabling executive control.<\/p>\n<p>Farotimi also referenced the EndSARS movement, arguing that security reforms in Nigeria remain superficial.<\/p>\n<p>However, Police spokesperson CSP Benjamin Hundeyin defended the action, saying officers enforced a valid court order restricting protests around sensitive government areas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Onilede Titi Faith Civil rights lawyer Dele Farotimi has accused the Nigeria Police Force and the judiciary of undermining citizens\u2019 constitutional rights to peaceful protest, saying Nigeria is \u201conly pretending to be a democracy.\u201d Speaking on Channels Television\u2019s The Morning Brief on Tuesday, Farotimi said citizens do not need police approval to hold protests, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":77021,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-77020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77020"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77020\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77022,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77020\/revisions\/77022"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}