2 weeks ago
5
Five years aft the #EndSARS protests implicit constabulary brutality and governance failure, a non-governmental organisation, Global Rights, has renewed its telephone for justness and accountability for the alleged killings of peaceful protesters astatine the Lekki Toll Gate successful Lagos State connected October 20, 2020.
In a connection by Global Rights enforcement director, Abiodun Baiyewu, connected Monday, the justness advocacy radical condemned the continued deficiency of accountability, informing that Nigeria’s ideology was “on tenterhooks.”
“The wounds of 20.10.20 inactive ache and stay ever caller for the families and loved ones of the victims,” said Baiyewu. “Many stay unacknowledged, their families uncompensated, and their killers unpunished.”
She recalled that connected that fateful nighttime successful 2020, Nigerian information forces allegedly opened occurrence connected unarmed protesters who were waving the nationalist emblem and singing the nationalist anthem.
The protestation was portion of a nationwide question calling for the disbandment of the notorious Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) limb of the Police accused of wide quality rights violations.
Despite nationalist outrage and the constitution of judicial panels crossed respective states, nary idiosyncratic has been held accountable for the killings astatine Lekki Toll Gate. The panels’ recommendations remained mostly ignored, and promised reforms person yet to materialised.
“The reports of judicial panels of inquiry… person mostly been ignored, and the reforms demanded by citizens stay unimplemented,” Baiyewu stated. “Instead, Nigeria’s civic abstraction continues to shrink.”
The connection highlighted however the 5 halfway demands of the 2020 protests — justness for victims of constabulary abuse, compensation for families, oversight of constabulary misconduct, betterment of policing practices, and amended payment for officers — person remained unmet.
This failure, Global Rights said, was further exposed during the #EndBadGovernance protests of 2024, wherever astatine slightest 30 citizens were reportedly killed and dozens, including minors, detained during peaceful demonstrations.
“The haunting images of malnourished children being charged with treason and lasting proceedings for protesting stay a stain connected our corporate conscience — conscionable arsenic indelible arsenic the memories of October 20, 2020,” the connection read.
The organisation criticised the government’s expanding usage of authorities similar the Cybercrime Act to people journalists, activists, and mundane citizens expressing dissenting opinions online.
“This signifier erodes the precise instauration of our ideology and sends a unsafe connection — that state of look exists lone connected paper,” Baiyewu warned.
As Nigeria marks the 5th day of the Lekki Toll Gate tragedy, Global Rights issued 4 cardinal demands to the Nigerian government: identify, arrest, and prosecute those who ordered and carried retired the shootings, arsenic good arsenic those progressive successful covering it up; instrumentality broad policing reforms, starting with the afloat implementation of the judicial sheet recommendations; guarantee instrumentality enforcement agencies are trained to negociate protests successful a rights-respecting and constitutionally compliant mode and – extremity the misuse of laws similar the Cybercrime Act to people dissent and guarantee extortion of state of look and peaceful assembly.
Global Rights recalled however youth-led movements from Kenya to Nepal and Madagascar are reshaping antiauthoritarian engagement done peaceful protest.
“While immoderate governments person resorted to repression, others person learned to prosecute these movements done dialog and betterment — knowing that protests are not threats, but expressions of ideology successful action,” Baiyewu said, urging the Nigerian authorities to dainty dissent arsenic an indispensable antiauthoritarian right, not a menace to nationalist security.
“No authorities enjoys disapproval — but beardown democracies usage it arsenic feedback,” stated Baiyewu. “The close to protestation is not a privilege granted by the state; it is simply a antiauthoritarian close that protects the authorities itself from tyranny.”
English (US) ·