Some
members of the ‘Our Mumu Don Do’ movement, which is leading a protest
demanding that
President Muhammadu Buhari either resume office or resign,
escaped death by the whiskers on Tuesday.
A group of
young men attacked the protesters led by Charles Oputa, popularly known as
Charly Boy, at the Wuse market in Abuja.
TheCable
gathered that Charly Boy went to the market for mobilisation of people for a
protest on Wednesday.
The fracas
started when he arrived at the market in the company of members of his group,
who wore shirts with the inscription ‘Our Mumu Don Do’.
According to
a witness, they were denied entry by the market officials.
The group
was said to have made frantic efforts to enter the market, but was pushed back
the officials; an argument then ensued.
The argument
attracted the youth of the market, who launched an attack on the group,
thinking that they had brought the #ResumeorResign protest to the place.
The youth
chanted; ‘Sai Baba! Sai Baba! Sai Baba’ as they descended on the group, chasing
them with sticks and stones.
The police
were forced to disperse the crowd after the confrontation got rowdy, while
traders were asked to vacate the place to avoid looting of their wares.
The fracas,
which lasted for two hours, was brought under control by men of the civil
defence corps who made some arrests at the scene of the violence.
Charly Boy
escaped, but the mob resorted to attacking passersby and shops located around
the market.
When
TheCable visited the market around 3pm, a Toyota Hilux van belonging to
the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) rushed a male who
sustained injuries out of the scene.
“It’s the
(wheel) barrow boys who attacked Charly Boy as they were protesting,” a witness
who was hurrying out of the place told TheCable.
Anjuguri Manzah,
spokesman of the police command in the FCT, told NAN that the prompt
intervention of the police averted a major clash between two opposing sides at
the market.
“The police
had brought the situation under control at the market,” Manzah said.
He said to
forestall further breakdown of law and order, the management of the market had
ordered its closure.
Manzah also
said a large contingent of policemen had been deployed to the market to provide
security.
Buhari has
spent 100 treating an undisclosed ailment in the UK.
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