Nigeria police cordoned off the entrance to New Afrika Shrine, and planted its men in the vicinity I order to head off a meeting by ENDSARS protesters originally slated for there on Nov17.
The meeting had however been cancelled earlier as Seun Kuti, owner of the venue, tweeted the decision after, according to him, his family advised him to not go ahead with it.
“Yesterday, the government called my eldest sister, Yeni Anikalpo Kuti, and threatened to close the shrine if I hold my event there tomorrow and also sent a letter to back it up,” the son of the late Afro beat icon Fela Anikulapo Kuti tweeted.
“I respect my families’ decision not to hold the event as is but I will still go ahead with all the other organisations to launch THE MOVEMENT OF THE PEOPLE tomorrow and start our political resistance to the tyranny of this oppressive regime.
“This is a meeting, just a meeting of organisations and they are basically banning the right of association. Why are they afraid of the people organising? What is democratic about this act? The last time we tried to launch the government quickly called curfew and this time they have used threat but you can’t stop the will of the people.”
The police had written formally to him, warning it will shut down the place.
“You are hereby warned to suspend such gathering as any infraction that may emerge from this gathering will be tagged a deliberate action to sabotage the transition and restoration of the peace in Lagos State by the Lagos State Government and the Nigeria Police Force,” the letter read.
The government has been muscling down any attempt to resume the October anti-police brutality tha plunged the state—and Nigeria—into mayhem.