Coalition slams Lagos govt over alleged witch hunt as Soweto, Frank trial adjourned to April 24
By Ishaya Ibrahim
A Yaba Magistrate Court, presided over by Magistrate I.O. Alaka, has adjourned the trial of two anti-demolition protesters—Hassan Taiwo Soweto, a coordinator of the #EndBadGovernance Movement in Lagos, and Dele Frank, popularly known as Arole Fela, to April 24.
When the case was called for mention today, March 11, one of the defendants, Dele Frank, was absent due to sudden illness, his lawyer, Tomi Olagunju of the Falana & Falana chambers, informed the court.
However, Prosecutor Anthony Ihiehie demanded a bench warrant for Dele Frank’s arrest, despite defence arguments that the illness was sudden and unforeseen.
Magistrate I.O. Alaka declined the prosecutor’s application, instead granting the defendant the benefit of the doubt and allowing him to appear on the next adjourned date of April 24.
Meanwhile, several activists attended the court proceedings in a show of solidarity with Soweto and Dele Frank. Jude Ojo later read out a joint statement on behalf of the 13 civil society organisations and representatives of three informal settlements, expressing support for the defendants while condemning the Lagos State Government for what it described as ongoing efforts to intimidate peaceful protesters.
They described the charges against Soweto and Dele Frank as “trumped-up,” stemming from their participation in a large peaceful protest on January 28, 2026, against forced evictions and demolitions in communities like Makoko, Oworonshoki, and others.
The statement, signed by CHSR, CAPPA, HOMEF, CEE-HOPE, among others, is reproduced below:
On 11 March 2026, victims of forced eviction from across Lagos State along with activists and civil society partners gathered at the Yaba Magistrate Court where two activists are standing trial for trumped-up charges following their arrest for involvement in the 28 January 2026 mass peaceful protest against forced eviction. The protest ended in a brutal crackdown with tear gas shot at protesters, resulting in numerous injuries and lost properties, as well as several arrests, seizure of musical equipment and a vehicle that accompanied the protest, and the severe beating of Comrade Hassan Soweto.
The Coalition against Demolition, Forced Eviction, Landgrabbing and Displacement in Lagos State hereby decries the ongoing prosecution as part of a systemic effort to intimidate peaceful protesters, divide evicted communities, ignore court orders, and undermine legitimate efforts to seek meaningful justice for evictees. We jointly condemn:
The prosecution of community members and activists alike for peaceful protest to draw attention to the plight of communities facing mass forced eviction. Recent examples include: (1) the ongoing prosecution of Comrade Hassan Soweto and Comrade Dele Frank for their involvement in the 28 January 2026 peaceful protest—charges that should be immediately dropped; (2) the prosecution of 13 community members from Oworonshoki over their involvement in peaceful protest against the 2025 mass forced eviction, which charges were just struck out;
The irregular processes that have been used to deceive and mislead successive communities seeking justice for mass forced evictions, as well as the public, in the aftermath of the forced evictions of Otumara (March 2025), Oworonshoki (September–December 2025), and Makoko (December 2025–January 2026), with false promises and government-dominated processes that sideline legal representation and civil society involvement and result in small pittances being paid to a few people to mislead the public and undermine efforts at broader justice;
Persistent disregard for court orders in favour of communities threatened by forced eviction, failure to make payment of compensation awarded by court, and efforts to stymie cases pending in court.
Recent examples include: (1) numerous evictions carried out in violation of the 2017 court judgment from the Lagos State High Court protecting waterfront communities from demolition without prior consultation and resettlement, which case has been “parked” at the Court of Appeal without a single hearing since 2021, despite a motion to dismiss the appeal filed by communities since 2019;
(2) disregard for court order in the demolition of Ojileru, Oworonshoki in late October 2025;
(3) failure of the Federal Government of Nigeria to make even modest payments of compensation to victims of forced eviction in line with a February 2025 judgment of the ECOWAS Community Court of Justice; and
(4) failure of the Lagos State Government to appear at court, or even for the court to sit, on a suit for enforcement of fundamental human rights filed by victims of the March 2025 Otumara eviction.
It is, unfortunately, not shocking that the same government that heartlessly and unconstitutionally destroys the homes and lives of tens of thousands of vulnerable residents of Lagos also intimidates and undermines efforts to peacefully seek justice.
These efforts to obfuscate and frustrate justice leave tens of thousands of victims of forced eviction in desperate poverty and unimaginable living conditions, with families separated, living in makeshift tents or squatting with relatives, landlords turned into tenants who have lost the investments of a lifetime, and people slowly dying from disease and desperation. Meanwhile, the lands from which these same families have been evicted are turned into luxury real estate developments and sold to the wealthy, or even left half-completed and empty while mass homelessness and squalor increases.
Visible examples are all around the centre city, from Periwinkle in Lekki Phase I where 30,000 people were violently evicted from Otodo Gbame from November 2016 to April 2017, to the abandoned government “affordable” housing projects on the footprint of the Badia eviction of February 2013 or successive forced evictions of fishing communities at Ilubirin; to the more recent example of the upcoming Metro View Estate currently being built by Zenco Properties atop the rubbles of Otumara and neighbouring communities.
We call on all residents of Lagos State, the nation, and the world to rise up against this systematic displacement, dispossession, deception and denial of justice. We will not allow brutality, intimidation, and gaslighting to distract us from our struggle for an end to brutal landgrabbing and urgent, concrete justice for the tens of thousands displaced. We will not stand silently while the Government brutalizes and dispossesses, amassing great wealth for the few and pushing the poor masses deeper into poverty.
A luta continua!
