The Executive Director of the Civil Society legislative Advocacy Centre, CISLAC, Mallam Auwal Ibrahim Musa aka Rafsanjani, was this evening manhandled and arrested by members of the Abuja Environmental Protection Board Task Force a statement by Kolawole Banwo, Snr. Program Officer,CISLAC said . The incident “occurred today within the Abuja metropolis as he tried to intervene in defense of helpless individuals who were being harassed and assaulted by these brutal and power drunk paramilitary (officials) who have constituted themselves into a terrorist group in the purported bid to enforce environmental laws in the FCT,” the statement said.
“We all are witnesses to the overbearing and high handedness of this legalized gang (that has) become accustomed to treating hapless and vulnerable citizens in inhuman ways and depriving them of the opportunity to earn their livelihoods” the senior officer of CISLAC said
He added that “Rafsanjani is known to be a law abiding citizen who believes in the defense of the weak and vulnerable and cannot stand the sight of people been treated as animals in their own country and Federal capital which belongs to us all and it was in the process of pursuing this endangered task even in a democracy that he has been subjected to this unlawful and illegal treatment.”
“We are aware that he is only suffering the plight that hundreds of our compatriots suffer daily in the hands of overzealous uniformed men.We call for his immediate release and demand that he be treated with dignity, in accordance with the laws and in respect of his fundamental human right to dignity and freedom”, the statement said.
