KANO POLICE BLOCK TINUBU MUST GO MEETING AS ORGANISERS ALLEGE POLITICAL INTERFERENCE

Police in Kano State prevented members of the Tinubu Must Go movement from accessing a privately rented venue for a political meeting on Sunday, October 11, setting off a dispute over public safety, political expression and the limits of police intervention after Commissioner Ibrahim Adamu Bakori said the command acted because approximately 700 people were expected to attend without prior security coordination.

The gathering had been scheduled at The Avenue Event and Conference Centre in Kano, where organizers planned to bring supporters together to discuss their campaign against President Bola Tinubu and mobilize Nigerians ahead of the 2027 general election. Members arriving at the venue found mobile police personnel and vehicles positioned around the premises, and organizers said they were prevented from entering the facility despite having paid to use it for the meeting.

Abba Hikima, a Kano based lawyer and one of the conveners of the movement, publicly accused the police of frustrating a lawful political gathering. In a live video posted from the scene, Hikima said approximately 10 mobile police vehicles had been deployed around the venue and argued that the presence of officers effectively prevented members from exercising their rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly. He maintained that the group had organized a peaceful indoor meeting and had not planned violence or any activity intended to disturb public order.

The police rejected the allegation that the intervention was designed to protect President Tinubu or suppress criticism of his administration. Bakori said the command was concerned about the safety of participants, residents and the wider community because of the number of people expected at the gathering. He acknowledged that the organizers were legally entitled to assemble and said they were not required to obtain police permission before holding the meeting, but he maintained that advance notification would have enabled officers to make adequate security arrangements.

According to Bakori, police became aware of the planned event through social media rather than direct communication from its organizers. He said he contacted Hikima on Saturday night and asked him to temporarily postpone the program so that representatives of the movement could meet police authorities and explain the nature of the gathering, the expected attendance and other logistical arrangements. The commissioner said Hikima indicated that he would consult other organizers and return the call, but police did not receive the response they expected before the meeting was scheduled to begin.

Bakori said the expected attendance of about 700 people was an important part of the command's security assessment. His position was that an event involving hundreds of people required preparation even when it was taking place at a private venue because large gatherings could create traffic, crowd control and security challenges and could also expose participants to threats from people opposed to their political message. He said the command had previously provided security for political organizations after receiving advance notice of their activities and insisted that officers were not attempting to determine which political views could be expressed in Kano.

The commissioner also referred to a separate security incident in Kano's Sabon Gari area that had occurred roughly two weeks earlier. Police said people who claimed to have entered Kano for political activities were arrested and that weapons were recovered during that operation. Bakori said the incident had made the command more cautious about large political gatherings involving participants whose movements and arrangements were not known to the authorities.

Police did not publicly accuse members of the Tinubu Must Go movement of possessing weapons, planning violence or being connected to the earlier Sabon Gari case. No verified evidence has emerged linking the organizers of Sunday's meeting to criminal activity. The police explanation therefore rests on a preventive security argument rather than an allegation that the specific gathering was itself violent or unlawful, a distinction that has become central to the controversy surrounding the intervention.

Hikima rejected the police explanation and argued that security concerns should not be used to prevent citizens from holding a peaceful political meeting. He cited constitutional protections covering expression and association and pointed to Nigerian court decisions that have limited the ability of police authorities to require citizens to obtain permission before holding peaceful gatherings. His position was that organizers did not have to seek approval from security agencies before meeting in a private facility to discuss political issues.

The legal dispute surrounding such gatherings has a long history in Nigeria. Nigerian courts have previously held that citizens do not need police permission before exercising constitutionally protected rights to peaceful assembly, although law enforcement agencies continue to argue that advance notification helps them manage public safety. The practical tension between those two positions has repeatedly surfaced during protests, opposition rallies and demonstrations in different parts of the country, particularly when events criticize the government or involve large numbers of participants.

After access to the Kano venue was blocked, members of the movement took their protest outside and were reported marching through parts of the city while carrying campaign materials and chanting against the Tinubu administration. The development transformed what had initially been planned as an indoor political meeting into a more visible street protest and drew national attention to both the movement and the police response.

The Tinubu Must Go movement describes itself as a platform seeking to mobilize Nigerians to vote President Tinubu out of office in the 2027 election. Organizers have focused their criticism on economic hardship, the cost of food, transport and energy, unemployment and other pressures affecting households. Those are political claims made by the movement and do not represent findings by an independent authority, but they reflect wider public debate surrounding the economic reforms introduced since Tinubu assumed office in 2023.

Tinubu's administration has defended its economic policies, including the removal of the petrol subsidy and changes to the foreign exchange system, as necessary measures intended to stabilize public finances and correct structural problems in the economy. The government has pointed to improvements in revenue, economic growth and foreign reserves as evidence that the reforms are producing results, while critics continue to argue that the benefits have not reached many households quickly enough to offset the increase in living costs experienced during the adjustment period.

The Kano confrontation comes as political activity gradually intensifies ahead of the 2027 general election. Although formal campaigning remains subject to electoral rules and schedules, political groups, opposition figures and civil society organizations have increasingly begun organizing around issues that are likely to shape the contest. Public dissatisfaction over economic conditions is expected to remain an important part of that debate, while supporters of the administration are likely to emphasize economic stabilization and longer term reform outcomes.

The police intervention has therefore attracted attention beyond the immediate question of whether organizers informed the command about their meeting. At the center of the dispute is whether security agencies can restrict access to a lawful gathering because organizers failed to give advance notice when the police themselves acknowledge that such notification is not a legal condition for exercising the right to assemble.

Bakori's explanation attempts to draw a distinction between requiring permission and requesting notification. Under that argument, citizens retain their right to assemble without police authorization, but officers still need enough information to protect participants and surrounding communities. Organizers dispute that position when notification becomes the practical basis for stopping an event, arguing that a voluntary security arrangement cannot effectively become a compulsory condition for political assembly.

The absence of any publicly established allegation that the Kano organizers planned violence is likely to keep that question at the center of discussion. If police had specific intelligence indicating an imminent threat to the gathering, greater disclosure about the nature of that risk could strengthen the security justification, although authorities may also be limited in what operational intelligence they can make public. As of the latest available accounts, the command has relied mainly on the expected crowd size, lack of advance coordination and its recent experience with a separate security incident.

The organizers, meanwhile, have indicated that the movement intends to continue its political activities. Hikima said members would continue organizing demonstrations and public campaigns, suggesting that the dispute may not end with Sunday's blocked meeting. Future gatherings could therefore provide an immediate test of whether the Kano command and the movement can agree on security arrangements without creating another confrontation over access and political expression.

No verified report available at the time of publication established that serious violence occurred during Sunday's incident, and the central dispute remains between the police account that the deployment was intended to prevent security problems and the organizers' allegation that officers interfered with political activity. Those competing claims should remain clearly separated until additional evidence, official documentation or independent investigation establishes more about the command's decision making.

The controversy also creates a broader institutional question for the Nigeria Police Force because inconsistent handling of political gatherings can undermine public confidence even where officers believe they are acting preventively. A security policy that requires advance coordination is likely to face continued legal and public scrutiny if citizens believe that groups supporting the government receive easier access to venues than groups campaigning against it. The Kano command has denied such political discrimination, but the organizers have challenged that explanation.

What happens at future Tinubu Must Go gatherings will help determine whether Sunday's confrontation becomes an isolated dispute or part of a continuing conflict between the movement and security agencies. The police have defended their actions as a safety measure, while organizers maintain that they were prevented from exercising constitutional rights despite planning a peaceful meeting. For now, there is no verified evidence that the gathering itself posed a specific violent threat, and the unresolved issue is whether the command's security concerns were sufficient to justify blocking access to the venue.

As Nigeria moves closer to another national election cycle, the Kano incident is likely to remain relevant to the wider debate over how authorities balance public safety with political expression. The immediate facts are that police prevented access to the venue, the commissioner acknowledged that organizers did not require permission to assemble, and the movement subsequently protested against the intervention. The next significant development will be whether police and organizers reach an accommodation for future events or whether similar gatherings produce renewed confrontations over notification, security and the constitutional right to peaceful political activity.