The Kogi State Police Command has secretly arraigned two Buhari-Must-Go protesters, Larry Emmanuel and Victor Udoka, in court, without giving them access to their lawyers.
The police in their desperation to harass the peaceful protesters also ensured that they were remanded at the Kabba Prison – without the knowledge of their lawyers or family members.
SaharaReporters learnt that neither the charges on which they were arraigned were made to the public or the identity of the Magistrate handling the trial.
SaharaReporters had earlier today reported that the police in Kogi State refused to produce the two Buhari-Must-Go protesters who were mobbed by hoodlums sponsored by the state government and thereafter taken to the police command.
It had been reported that the lawyers of the protesters since Monday had not been able to set eyes on them, as the police who claimed to be in custody of the two men, refused to bring them to their lawyers.
This is sequel to the torture which violent youths on Sunday gave the middle-aged protesters who were pasting Buhari-Must-Go posters in Lokoja, the Kogi State capital.
SaharaReporters had reported that the irate mob flogged the two youths, filmed them and brutalised them before they were later handed over to the police.
It had been gathered that the police thereafter quizzed the two protesters and detained them when they insisted on seeing their lawyer before making a statement.
“The lawyers have been there for two days now and the police haven’t produced them. The police commissioner in Kogi could not produce anti-Buhari protesters he claimed were in his custody after two days.
“We are hearing they were never returned to police custody after the police handed them over to thugs,” a source in Lokoja had told this newspaper.
“They arranged a Magistrate to secretly try the two guys without legal representation.
“They are reportedly in Kabba prison. The police have refused to release the charges to the public and all efforts by lawyers to get the charges have not been fruitful,” a human rights activist following the case revealed to SaharaReporters.
