Nigeria on Monday charged 10 people with treason and conspiring to incite the military to mutiny following last month’s\u00a0nationwide demonstrations\u00a0that saw thousands take to the streets to protest against a cost of living crisis.<\/p>\n
The protests were met with a\u00a0deadly crackdown by security forces\u00a0and Amnesty International said at least 13 people were killed. Security forces denied using lethal force.<\/p>\n
The 10 men were arraigned in the Abuja Federal High Court and entered a not guilty plea. They face the death penalty if convicted, human rights lawyer Inibehe Effiong said.<\/p>\n
State prosecutors said in court papers seen by Reuters that the protesters intended to destabilise Nigeria and “conspired together to commit felony to wit, treason”.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors also laid five other charges against the accused under the country’s penal code, including inciting the military to mutiny, burning government buildings and disturbing public peace.<\/p>\n
Lawyers for the protesters sought their release on bail, which was opposed by the state. The court will make a ruling on Sept. 11 when their trial is expected to begin.<\/p>\n
Amnesty urged the government to unconditionally release all the people arrested during the protests. It said the trial was meant to unlawfully justify detaining protesters.<\/p>\n
“These are blatantly trumped-up charges that must be immediately withdrawn,” said Isa Sanusi, director for Amnesty International Nigeria.<\/p>\n
Nigerians blame economic reforms by President Bola Tinubu, in office since May 2023, for economic hardship, worsened by\u00a0double-digit inflation\u00a0after the currency was devalued and the cost of petrol and electricity rose.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Nigeria on Monday charged 10 people with treason and conspiring to incite the military to mutiny following last month’s\u00a0nationwide demonstrations\u00a0that saw thousands take to the streets to protest against a cost of living crisis. The protests were met with a\u00a0deadly crackdown by security forces\u00a0and Amnesty International said at least 13 people were killed. Security forces […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12909,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":4,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"Reuters"},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[33,27],"tags":[2864,196,175],"class_list":["post-13154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","category-west-africa","tag-endbadgovernance","tag-bola-tinubu","tag-nigeria"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13154\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}