Five Men Face Charges for Wearing 'Tinubu Must Go' T-Shirts

The Nigeria Police Force in Borno State has charged five men to court. They were arrested for wearing T-shirts that said, "Tinubu Must Go."

The men are Baba Aji Gremami, Mustapha Abba Yemen, Abacha Mohammed Ali, Adam Umar Gubio, and Abdulhamid Mohammed.

Documents seen by PREMIUM TIMES show that the men face charges of criminal conspiracy, inciting disturbance, public peace disturbance, and thuggery.

The charges say the five men "conspired together by printing some T-shirts with some inscription written Tinubu Must Go on it, with the intent to cause breach of public peace within the West End Roundabout Community."

These alleged offences go against Sections 60, 78, 79, and 392 of the Borno State Penal Code Law.

Rights group Amnesty International condemned the arrests. They said that wearing a T-shirt with a political message is not a crime.

"Hurriedly remanding them in prison and accusing them bizarrely of ‘the intent to cause breach of public peace within West End Roundabout Community Maiduguri’ simply for wearing a t-shirt with a message of political dissent is not a crime," the group stated.

Amnesty International called for the men’s release and asked for the charges to be dropped.

"Authorities in Borno state have resorted to the familiar playbook of using the law to criminalize peaceful dissent and silence opposition," Amnesty International said.

The organization also accused the Borno State Government and the police of targeting opposition parties and their supporters with arrests and detentions.

They urged Governor Babagana Zulum's government to respect freedom of expression and association and uphold the rule of law.

"Political opposition is part of human rights," Amnesty International said. They added that the right to express political opinions should not only belong to one political party's supporters.

The Borno State Police Command has not released an official statement about the arrests or the charges.

PREMIUM TIMES tried to reach the police spokesperson in Borno, Nahum Daso, for comment. Mr Daso did not answer calls and has not replied to a text message as of the time of this report.