Several civil society organisations (CSOs) in Nigeria have called for the unconditional release of all #EndSARS protesters detained since 2020.
They made the call following the release of the Lagos State judicial panel of inquiry report on the shooting at Lekki and police brutality cases.
The 309-page report equated ‘the atrocious maiming and killing of unarmed, helpless and unresisting protesters on 20 October, 2020, to a “massacre” in context’.
The Nigerian army has continuously denied involvement in the incident despite several accounts of witnesses showing that there were casualties.
Before the incident at Lekki, the National Economic Council (NEC), chaired by the Vice-President, Yemi Osinbajo, had directed the establishment of judicial panels of inquiry by state governors in Nigeria to investigate complaints of police brutality.
Protests against police brutality and extrajudicial killings, with hashtag #EndSARS, brought Lagos and some other cities to a standstill last year after the killing of a young man by a police unit – the Special Anti Robbery Squad (SARS).
Nigeria’s Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, had on 19 November, 2020, faulted the CNN investigation, which concluded that soldiers shot at protesters. Mohammed insisted that the military did not shoot at protesters at the Lekki tollgate but fired blank ammunition in the air.
However, the report of the Lagos state judicial panel of inquiry noted that both blank and live bullets were fired by the army at protesters.
‘Panel also finds that the shooting of the protesters by the Nigerian army at the Lekki tollgate on [20 October, 2020] was unwarranted, excessive, provocative and unjustifiable in the circumstances of the state of the protests which was peaceful and orderly’, the report of the panel led by a retired judge, Doris Okuwobi, read.
The report also indicted the Lagos Concession Company (LCC), which owns and manages the Lekki tollgate, for complicity in the ‘conscious manipulation’ of footage.
The panel bemoaned the absence of the military officers who received summons but refused to appear as a tact to derail the purpose of the panel.
‘The panel believes that the deliberate absence of officers of the Nigerian army who were present at the Lekki tollgate and who were summoned by the panel was a calculated attempt to conceal material evidence from the panel and verily believes that their presence would have damaged the case of the Nigerian army’, it noted.
The Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) called on the Nigerian authorities to take remedial measures towards victims.
‘For over a year, the Nigerian government’s response to the question of #EndSARS massacre has been denial. They have asked: Who are the dead? Where are their bodies? This report confirms Nigerians were killed – youths in their prime. Their crime? Asking for a better country’, CDD tweeted.
‘Now the #EndSARS report is out, and what we have long claimed is established as fact, we hope all Nigerians across religious and political divides will join voices to condemn this evil for what it truly was, and is. We owe the victims that little’.
Amnesty International (AI), in its reaction to the judicial panel report, noted that the panel’s findings corroborated its initial on-the-ground investigation.
AI’s investigation had found that the army and the police killed at least 12 peaceful protesters in Lekki and Alausa – with evidence gathered from eyewitnesses, video footage and hospital reports.
The international rights group urged the Nigerian government to ensure that the soldiers responsible for the shooting of protesters are brought to justice.
‘For the survivors and relatives of the dead, the judicial panel report findings are only the first step towards justice and restitution’, the organisation said in a statement.
‘President Buhari must act promptly to ensure that those found to be responsible for shooting and attacks on peaceful protesters are brought to justice in fair trial.
‘Nigerian authorities must ensure access to justice and effective remedies including adequate compensation, restitution and guarantee of non-repetition to victims and their families. Authorities must also immediately and unconditionally release all #EndSARS protesters unlawfully detained since last year’.
The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has also revealed plans to sue the Nigerian government in a bid to compel it to prosecute the soldiers and police officers who shot at unarmed protesters.
‘We are suing the Buhari administration to compel it to immediately arrest the soldiers responsible for the shooting of #EndSARS protesters at Lekki tollgate and pay reparations to victims’, SERAP tweeted.
‘We are also following up with our petition dated 21 October, 2020, to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court by forwarding today a copy of the report of Lagos #EndSARS panel as additional information and evidence’.
Another CSO, Enough is Enough Nigeria (EiE), has called for the resignation of the country’s president and the governor of Lagos State over the incident.
‘The report of the Lagos State Judicial Panel of Inquiry on Restitution for Victims of SARS Related Abuses and Other Matters has settled the argument once and for all: there was a massacre at Lekki tollgate and across Lagos on [20] October, 2020, and this was carried out by soldiers and the police who were ordered to kill unarmed citizens waving the country’s flag and singing its national anthem’, EiE said in a statement.
‘At this juncture, what is to be done is clear, and we thus demand – the immediate resignation of Mr Babajide Sanwo-Olu as governor of Lagos State, and Maj. Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) as president. The buck of this massacre rests squarely on their table’.
However, in his reaction to the report, the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), General Lucky Irabor, said, ‘Whether it is a true report, I cannot tell but I would like to indicate that the normal procedure is to have such a report submitted to the convening authority and then there will be a white paper based on which one can make informed comments.
‘But whatever you see currently, I will like to indicate that the armed forces of Nigeria is a professional armed forces, we are peopled by Nigerians and we remain committed to constitutional mandates so we do not at this point think that Nigerians should make disparaging remarks regarding the armed forces of Nigeria in the sense that we are professional armed forces and if there are issues, of course, we address them within the ambits of the provision’.
Photo source: Tobi James
