Nigerian civil society groups fear a security crackdown ahead of an opposition rally on Tuesday to protest against a flawed presidential election last month that gave the ruling party a crushing victory.
Powerful trade unions and main opposition parties called for nationwide protests on May Day after the electoral body declared Umaru Yar’Adua of the People’s Democratic Party the winner of an April 21 presidential election, which monitors said were rigged.
Mabel Adinga Ade, head of the biggest local observer group said the secret police have arrested at least one campaigner in the capital Abuja while others have received anonymous threats.
“They don’t want us to say the truth,” said Ade of the Transition Monitoring Group, which was active during the 1999 and 2003 elections.
“Many of us have been receiving threats and we fear this may be the beginning of a general clampdown on members of the civil society groups, but we are not deterred,” Ade said.
The group, which receives funding from the United Nations Development Programme, the European Union, Canada and Britain, had complained of intimidation from the secret police and the electoral agency before the elections.
The secretive State Security Service answers to the National Security Advisers which, in turn, is under orders from President Olusegun Obasanjo.
The Inspector General of Police Sunday Ehindero said while May Day rallies would be allowed at designated grounds, anyone marching without a permit would be dispersed with teargas.
“Any procession that takes place without a police permit will be dispersed forcefully, it will be teargassed and if greater force is required, we will use it,” Ehindero told a news conference in the capital.
International monitors and local observers have denounced the presidential vote and state polls on April 14 as a failure, but the government said the criticism was intended to make way for a coup.
Obasanjo has told aggrieved parties to seek redress through the courts before he hands over power on May 29 in the first transition from one civilian leader to another in Africa’s most populous nation.
Opposition leaders were reluctant to call for mass protests because they fear the demonstrations could be taken over by violent or criminal elements and lead to a security crackdown.
The programme of non-violent protests started with prayer sessions on Friday and the main opposition leader Muhammadu Buhari of the All Nigeria People’s Party is expected to attend one of the rallies to be held simultaneously across the country.
President-elect Yar’Adua says he won the election fair and square.