#BringBackOurGirls: Campaigners’ suit hearing begins today

By Stanley Onyekwere

Hearing on the suit filed against the police by campaigners calling for the release of the over 200 abducted Chibok girls commences today.

The group had filed the suit after the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Commissioner of Police, Mr. Joseph Mbu, on June 2, issued an order banning protests by the group. They are seeking N200 million in damages and an order restraining the police from interfering with their protest.

Members of the group also planned to write to the Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Abubakar, to effect his plans of deploying security operatives to protect the group while its protests are on.

Coordinator of the group, Hadiza Usman, said that it had become worrisome to note that the IGP had not attached security operatives to protect the group in the course of daily sit-outs, one week after his advice for adequate security at the venues of rallies.

IGP Abubakar, had on June 3, reversed the order by Mr. Mbu banning protest in the nation’s capital Abuja.

Contrary to Mbu’s order, the spokesman for the Police, Mr. Frank Mba, told reporters in Abuja that the police authorities had not issued any order banning peaceful assemblies and protests anywhere in the country.

Mr. Mbu had hinged the ban on the emergence of parallel groups which posed security risk to the nation’s capital, but the ‘Bring Back Our Girls’ campaigners rejected the directive, insisting that the protest would continue.

The Police High Command reversing the ban explained that intelligence report had necessitated the need to advise the protesters on the possibility of infiltration by criminal elements.

The group started protest few weeks after the abduction of the girls on April 14 by a terrorist group, Boko Haram.

Military say it is has identified the location of the girls and is putting strategies in place to rescue them without casualties.