Confusion In Abuja: Police Battle Protesters, Fire Teargas, Workers Avoid Offices

Civil servants who turned up to resume offices today, October 20, after the weekend rest were forced to return to their houses as police personnel engaged in a fierce battle with protesters, engineered by the publisher of Sahara Reporters, Omoyele Sowore.
Our Reporters at some points in the heart of the Federal Capital Territory Abuja, said that mobile police personnel, in full battle gear, chased away the protesters around the Eagle Square, opposite the National Assembly complex, firing canisters of teargas.
Sowore had vowed to lead one-million protesters to the Aso Rock Presidential villa, to press for the release from detention, of the leader of outlawed Indigenous Peoples Of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu. Kanu has been in detention for more than six years, undergoing trial in court for, among others, terrorism.
Only Friday last week, a Federal High Court in Abuja had given an interim order restraining the organisers of the protest from going near to the Presidential villa, the National Assembly and other key government institutions.
However, the organisers insisted that they would stick to their original plan of converging in the Federal Capital Territory and a march to Aso Rock Villa.
In the early hours of today, the protesters converged in the Maitama area of the FCT, ready to commence the march to the villa and other strategic places.
The protesters, led by Nnamdi Kanu’s lawyers, Alloy Ejimakor, were joined at the take-off point in Maitama by Omoyele Sowore, but were confronted by the security operatives firing teargas canisters.
The organisers of the protest tagged #FreeNnamdiKanuNow, have been warned by security agencies to abort the action or face the consequences.
The Director of Mobilisation for the Take It Back Movement, Damilare Adenola, bluffed the warning by the security agent, vowing that the protest would go on as scheduled, both in Abuja and simultaneously in the South-Eastern states of the country.