Land Grabbing: Police Arrest 5 Community Protesters

Edo State Police Command has said the five persons that were arrested during the protest by Edo State civil society organisations in Benin recently, were arrested because they conducted themselves in a bestial manner by taking animal carcasses dripping with blood to the state secretariat premises where they rained curses on the government and Governor Godwin Obaseki.
The commissioner of Police said in a statement issued by the Edo State Police Public Relations Officer, Mr. Chidi Nwabuzor, that the protesters also did not notify the police before they carried out the protest.
The protesters had taken to the streets, to express their anger, pain, disappointment and frustration over the forceful takeover of their lands at in Oke-Oroma by the Edo State government.
The commissioner said, “We want to let the press know what we are doing, so that the general public will know what we are doing in the state. The Edo State Police Command is to ensure that lives and properties are well protected and citizens go about their normal businesses.
“Just yesterday another case occurred, where some miscreants organized themselves in the name of civil society and went to the Palm House Secretariat, at Sapele road, to express and demonstrate against the state government policies that says ‘Land Grabbers must be arrested and brought to book.’
“And in so doing, Edo state government had actually recovered some government lands in the state. Such as in Oke-Oroma, Ogheghe and other communities in the state. These miscreants with some animals went into the Palm House Secretariat and spilled animal blood and rained curses on the state government and the governor himself. Very soon they will be charged to court,” he stressed.
Nwabuzor said, “(Their) Number two offence is the gathering of protesters in the premises of the secretariat, where they carried out their unlawful work like; Juju, Voodoo.
“The third one is unlawful assembly in the same premises that the protesters were not permitted to be; conduct likely to cause breach of peace. They were carrying out an unlawful assembly that could easily trigger issues that could cause civil disobedience.”
But the detainees from Oke-Oroma community in Ikpoba Okha Local Government Area were said to have been arrested because they were agitating against the demolition of their property by the state government. The arrest was carried out at the premises of the National Museum in Benin City.
One of the protesters who spoke to newsmen said combined team of security agencies made up of Department of State Security Service (DSS), policemen stormed the venue with three Hilux vehicles full of personnel, two Prado Jeeps, Armoured Tank and Machine guns after the protest.
The source who did not give out his name said the protesters were at the museum premises to round off the protest when the security agencies swooped on them. He said the five persons included one Comrade Ojo Collins. He said they are yet to know where the arrested persons were taken to.
Members of Oke-Oroma community and land developers in the area had taken to the streets to protest against the demolitions of their property and alleged forceful annexation of their land by the state government.
The protesters, which included victims of the demolitions and traditionalists also took part in the peaceful protest.
The traditionalists, clad in red attires, carried clay pot containing live chicken and other unknown substances along with them. There were also masquerade groups among them. The traditionalists claimed that their shrines on the lands acquired by government were also destroyed
The protest ended at the premises of the Ministries of Housing, Urban and Regional Planning and Development and Justice where the traditionalists strangled a chicken, danced around a clay pot and recited incantations.
The traditionalists called on the ancestors to come to their rescue and fight those allegedly taking over their ancestral lands.
The protest caused traffic gridlock around the Ring Road,