Take-It-Back Protesters Storm Ikeja, Challenge Government’s ‘Repressive’ Rule

  Hundreds of enraged Nigerians under the banner of the Take-It-Back Movement flooded Ikeja Under Bridge in Lagos on Monday, defying warnings and police presence to demand sweeping reforms and relief from what they called an “increasingly repressive” government.   With placards denouncing the alleged weaponisation of the Cybercrime Act and condemning economic mismanagement, the demonstrators painted a grim picture of a nation on edge. Some banners read: Any law that forbids us from speaking against oppression in Nigeria is no longer a law but shackles of slavery”* and *“When law becomes a tool of oppression, unite to repeal it.”*   Despite heavy police deployment, the protest proceeded without violence. Officers were seen monitoring the crowd as chants against government policies echoed beneath the bridge.   The protest was part of a coordinated nationwide action targeting President Tinubu’s administration, particularly over what organisers labelled a “state of emergency” in Rivers State and intensifying authoritarian tactics.   Take-It-Back Movement’s National Coordinator, Juwon Sanyaolu, in a prior statement, accused the government of clamping down on dissent and warned that “a nation cannot thrive on fear and silence.”   Monday’s protest is being seen as a warning shot — a visible sign of rising public anger and resistance to policies perceived as unjust, oppressive, and out of touch with the everyday struggles of Nigerians.

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