Police break up march by human rights protesters

Human rights activists and their supporters marched through Lagos on Wednesday to protest against President Olusegun Obasanjo’s government and Nigeria's hosting of a Commonwealth summit, but they were dispersed by riot police. More than 1,000 activists belonging to the United Action for Democracy (UAD), a coalition of rights and pro-democracy groups, marched through the centre of Nigeria's biggest city. They carried placards denouncing Obasanjo’s government and the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, which is due to start in the capital Abuja on Friday. The demonstrators were soon joined by thousands of street traders near the popular Yaba market. Bamidele Aturu, a UAD leader, told the crowd that Obasanjo was squandering the country’s wealth on jamborees. He said the president had imported bullet-proof cars worth US $400 million while the majority of Nigerians suffered poverty. “Obasanjo believes the support of foreign governments will make him survive, but the Nigerian people will disgrace him before his masters,” Aturu said. Riot police baton-charged the protesters, firing tear gas as people fled. Several people received minor injuries, while others, including Aturu and a television crew from Minaj Broadcasting International, were arrested. Two reporters from another television station, Galaxy, said they were beaten by the police. A police officer told IRIN the march was illegal as the protesters did not obtain a police permit. Britain’s Queen Elizabeth, who heads the Commonwealth, an informal grouping of former British colonies, was due to arrive in Nigeria on Wednesday ahead of Friday’s formal opening of the four-day Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting. Several of the 53 leaders from around the world invited to the summit have already arrived in Nigeria. The New York based rights group Human Rights Watch issued a report on Nigeria ahead of the meeting in which it accused Obasanjo's government of killing, torturing and harassing its critics as well as rigging its re-election earlier in the year. The government rejected the allegations and dismissed the report as “jaundiced and misconceived”. But UAD protesters backed up the Human Rights Watch allegations. “The regime is standing on a weak foundation of a rigged and contested election,” it declared in pamphlets distributed at the protest march. “Instead of resigning, it has resorted to the ways of anti-people dictators.”