Tinubu worse than Abacha, targeted minors to prevent future protests - Adeyanju

Activist lawyer, Deji Adeyanju, has disclosed that President Bola Tinubu was behind the arraignment of minors arrested during the EndBadGovernanceInNigeria protests.

Adeyanju said the minors were arraigned by Tinubu's administration to serve as a deterrent to prevent further protests in Nigeria.

The Nigerian government had arraigned 72 protesters for engaging in the nationwide EndBadGovernanceInNigeria protest.

Out of the 72 protesters, 32 were minors and were initially arraigned in an Abuja Federal High Court on charges of treason.

However, the Nigerian government withdrew the charges against the minors following an outcry from Nigerians.

Speaking with Newsmen, Adeyanju said Tinubu was worse than former Military Head of State, Sani Abacha.

He said: "The aim was not to prosecute the kids; the aim was to deter people from protesting. They want to send a clear message that if you try it, we will detain you for 93 days. If we can detain children, who are you that we will not detain? We will detain you; we will dehumanize you, and we will starve you.

"They denied us access to seeing the children. They denied us legal representation in contravention of the constitution and denied their families and parents from seeing them repeatedly.

"What else can be more than that when it comes to the issue of torture? That's torture. Denied them food, that's torture, simpliciter. The government is just a huge joke, the government is not different from a military regime. There's no difference.

"Tell me, Abacha did not arrest or arraign children in an open court. This president fled the country when Abacha was looking for him; he didn't want to be arrested when Abacha was looking for him.

"Today, he is the one arresting children and putting them on trial for treasonable felony while bandits roam about the whole country free. Bandits operate for 7, 8 hours unchallenged in most parts of the country."