How sponsors of violent protest fled Nigeria before arrest — IGP

August 13, 2024

Inspector General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, has revealed that some sponsors behind the hijacking of the planned peaceful protest against bad governance and hunger fled the country on the eve of the protest to evade arrest.

Speaking at the Nigerian Police Youth Summit held at the Police Resource Centre in Abuja, Egbetokun disclosed that intelligence reports indicated that certain individuals intended to exploit the protest to destabilise the nation.

According to him, some of these individuals had already left the country, while others departed on the day the protests commenced.

“Before the protest, we had intelligence that some agents of destabilization were bent on using the protest to destabilize the country. Some of them were already out of the country. Some of them moved out that very day the protest kicked off”, he said.

“If the organisers of the protest were sincere, following our warnings of hijacking it, they would have followed the guidelines or gone ahead to meet with the Commissioner of Police of their state.

“It was for your personal safety,” Egbetokun stated, emphasising the importance of cooperation with law enforcement to ensure public safety.

Addressing allegations from the Nigeria Labour Congress about a police raid on Labour House, the IGP clarified that the police had not raided the premises.

Instead, they had tracked a prime suspect to a shop where sensitive documents, revealing the suspect’s involvement in the plot, were recovered.

“There was no need for the noise about the alleged raid on Labour House because we did not raid Labour House.

“We tracked a prime suspect we were looking for. We recovered sensitive documents that gave out the involvement of our suspect. He was using the shop or place of business as a front,” Egbetokun explained.

The IGP also criticised the protest, which was tagged “10 days of rage,” as an indication that the organisers did not intend for it to be peaceful.

“When you tagged the protest 10 days of rage, you know it is not going to be peaceful, and you all saw it for yourself,” he added.

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