Nigeria arrests journo, opposition leader Sowore

Nigerian authorities have arrested five activists who were organising a an anti-government protest, severely beating the most prominent of them Omoyele Sowore, his lawyer said Saturday.

Sowore's lawyer Femi Falana demanded his client's immediate release following the arrests in the capital Abuja overnight December 31, adding that he had been placed in a dangerous section of a notorious prison.

The police officers who arrested Sowore, who is also a journalist, "subjected him to severe beating and left him with bruises all over his body," Falana told AFP.

"As if that was not enough he has been locked up in the midst of armed robbery suspects at a notorious detention facility called 'abattoir'," the lawyer said.