EndSARS protesters’ frozen accounts: NIGERIANS BEHIND YOU – CACOL Executive Chairman, Debo Adeniran assures victims
Mr Debo Adeniran is the executive chairman of the Coalition Against Corrupt Leaders, CACOL. In this interview with Ayodele Olalere, he spoke on the recent action by government to freeze the accounts of some EndSARS protesters, which has generated a lot of controversies.
He also suggested actions the victims could take to ensure they get justice.
Recently, the Federal Government froze the account or some of the EndSARS protesters. At the same time, various state governments have established judicial panels and the government is also calling for calm. Do you think the government is sincere?
It’s like all the states where the violent protests took place were asked to set up the judicial panel of enquiry to shed light on what transpired during that period. That might be what is responsible for the setting up of judicial panel in Lagos just like any other state. That’s a judicial process.
When you look at a protest, anytime somebody is making plans to do street protest, he’s expected to make plans for the consequences of that outing. Although everybody including the governors and the President acknowledged the protesters have a good cause, the government is not likely to allow the disruptions of economic activities in their respective states and that might be responsible for the curfew that was declared in several states.
If there are criminal acts that were suspected, for example, there is a law that guaranteed the right to peaceful assembly, but if it turns violent, the law is against it. The law enforcement agencies will do their job at that level. But there is a law that guarantees freedom of movement.
The protesters also have the freedom to move from one location to another. That protest should, however, not disturb the movement of other people. As soon as protest is disrupting the movement of other people, an offence would have been committed and the law enforcement agencies have a job to do. The freedom of assembling should not prevent other people from going to places of their assemblage. Where somebody’s right ends is where another begins.
If there is a disruption of economic activity in any part of the country and it is discovered that it was orchestrated in a way that was capable of bringing the government down, the government, also like a corporate entity, has right to protect itself. So anybody that is making such protest should also make plans to respond to its consequence.
It was discovered that this orchestrated protest that has disrupted economic activities one way or another and turned violent where critical infrastructure of the state were attacked raised a lot of questions and that might be the reason why the investigation had it that some people funded it.
I may not subscribe to it that it should be termed terrorism but the truth is that once anybody is found to be in support of any peaceful protest that turns violent, he should be ready to pay for the consequences. That was what we did during the days of NADECO. We were arrested, tried and some of us were killed like Ken Saro-Wiwa.
Some people were convicted like Beko Ransome-Kuti and a few others were convicted to life in prison. Several of us served terms in jail because we did protest. That is the consequences of daring to sacrifice our freedom for the emancipation of people.
For those who are complaining, it’s one of those things that always come from making such laudable efforts. It’s a different ball game if the money that was contributed to the protesters came from illicit sources. If it is from illicit sources, we are not going to say that the law should not be implemented if anybody has committed a crime. People should be ready to defend that in court.
If the money is clean, then they have nothing to fear because Nigerians would be behind them. It’s only the criminals that attacked businesses and robbed that have a lot of things to fear. They cannot be justified. Once a crime is committed, it should be punished.
There are full crimes and there are pseudo crimes. For those involved in peaceful protest, they are pseudo crime and should not warrant freezing of their accounts. Our passports have been withdrawn before and eventually, we went to court and they were returned to us. Those are the normal responses we get when protest happens.
In the spirit of peace, do you think freezing of the accounts is the best action government could have taken? The youths are threatening to stage another protest, will this not cause another crisis?
If the government doesn’t have any good reason to freeze the accounts of those whose accounts have been frozen, then it would be a wrong move. That is why the government should be ready to do all the explaining why they believe such an account is illegal or why it deserved to be flagged. It is not a crime to support a popular protest but the government would have outreached its respectability if innocent people’s account with hard-earned money is frozen.
It is a different thing when the government said they would look into the complaint of the protesters and agreed that all the five-point demands would be implemented but I am not sure the government promised not to arrest anybody who has committed a crime. They didn’t say they would accommodate anybody that helped to launder illicit money.
There is a law against money laundering and terrorism financing. I am not saying it is right to term protesters terrorists but those who have unleashed violence on the critical infrastructure of the state cannot be exonerated.
Protest can happen without the destruction of lives and property. We should separate the genuineness of the protest from the criminality that followed it. For those who have committed the crime, the government holds it a duty to protect the interest of those who didn’t commit a crime.
For those who seized the opportunity of the popular cause that led to the protest to launder the money that they have got through illegal transfer, they should not be allowed to reap the fruits of their illegal act. I am not sure it’s part of the agreement that anyone that committed a genuine crime would not be held responsible for it.
What would you advise the government to do in the spirit of peace?
I would advise the government to be more transparent in whatever they are doing. They are supposed to be more forthcoming with an explanation on why they are taking a particular course of action. They should ensure that pseudo crimes are not punished.
The government should not be petty in freezing such accounts except crime has been committed and it has to be proven that crime has been committed before anyone is punished for it. If a criminal is not apprehended at the most opportune time, they could slip away and be more expensive and difficult to apprehend thereafter.
If anybody has engaged in illicit money transfer and this protest provides the opportunity for such person to be apprehended, that would mean that the state is taking steps to protect innocent members of the same society. If an illicit money transfer is allowed and overlooked because of the popularity of the cause of protest, a lot of innocent Nigerians would suffer the jeopardy which can be prevented.
Once anybody tries to seize the opportunity of the moment to carry out illegality, then law enforcement agencies should also seize the same opportunity to apprehend such criminals to bring them to justice.
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For those whose accounts have been frozen, what steps should they take?
I advise them to approach the court to ask for enforcement of their fundamental human rights to own property. Nobody can hold their property unjustly. Nobody should deny them access to their property without any genuine cause. They should ask for damages and cost so that the government would know that citizens know their rights and how to pursue them to a logical conclusion.
They should also be ready to prove that the money that has been discovered in their accounts are from legal sources so that at the end of the day, the court would agree with them that it is their legitimate property that government should not have denied them access to it.
To prevent a repeat of such protest, what measures should the government take to restore the people’s lost confidence?
We have canvassed for transparency, accountability and participatory governance. People should be put into confidence in any action government is taking. They should not be secretive on whatever they are doing. There should be a kind of oversight function on every government agency including the police.
The police should find a way of monitoring the activities of their officers and men on the field to ensure they don’t overreach their limitations so that innocent people should not be punished unjustly. Where any officer runs foul of the rules of engagement, the police don’t have to wait for people to protest before they sanction their people and the people should know they were sanctioned.
Government should be more alert to its responsibility by ensuring checks and balances at every level of the action it takes to ensure nobody uses his position to oppress other members of the same society. Whatever they want to do, they should ensure there is no communication gap between the people and the government. There should peace and harmony with the people. There should be equitable applications of rules and laws.
The energy put into EndSARS protesters and their sponsors with which intelligence was discovered should be put into fighting the insurgency and terrorists. They should apprehend them, interrogate them. They should seize their passports, freeze their accounts, and charge them to court. They can’t spare terrorists and insurgents and pursue those they acknowledged had a just cause to pursue.
