Two Kogi youths, Anene Victor and Emmanuel Larry, who were arrested earlier this week with for protesting against the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd) have been secretly arraigned before a magistrates’ court in Lokoja, the state capital.
Victor and Larry were apprehended for painting walls and pasting Buhari-Must-Go posters in the state at night.
In a video that went viral on Monday, the two men were captured being forcefully told to display the “Buhari must go” posters while they being flogged for having the effrontery to protest.
An online newspaper, TheCable, on Friday reported that the protesters’ lawyer, Benjamin Omeiza, said his clients were arraigned on Tuesday at the Magistrates’ Court 1, Lokoja, popularly called Lugard Court, on charges bordering on treasonable felony and inciting public unrest.
Omeiza said the magistrate had signed a remand order in his office owing to the nationwide strike by the Judicial Staff Union of Nigeria.
He said, “One of the police officers at the A Division reliably informed me that they were taken and arraigned before a magistrate in his office who signed a remand warrant.
“At a time when the judiciary is on strike, a magistrate is entertaining a case he has no jurisdiction over and then remanding suspects over a bailable allegation.”
Omeiza said he tried to get in contact with the Kogi State commissioner of police but was later directed to see the officer in charge of the legal department at the command headquarters.
“I registered my grievances before her and she confirmed that they were remanded on Tuesday,” the lawyer said.
