by Eze Eluchie
After over
two weeks of continuous street protests by Nigerian youths seeking three key
demands, to wit: 1) proscription of the dreaded Special Anti-Robbery Squad
{SARS} of the Nigeria Police Force which had been implicated in several cases
of extra-judicial murders, extortion and dehumanizing/degrading treatment of
civilians; 2) Action against Corruption which had become endemic in Government;
and 3) Enthronement of Good Governance at all stratas of governance in Nigeria,
the peaceful nature of the protests was brought to a most brutal end by 18.50pm
on Tuesday, 20th October 2020, when a continuing staccato of live
ammunition fired into the crown by Military personnel, sent the crowd of young
protesters in a frenzied stampede, with several killed and scores injured.
The brazenness
of the attacks had stupefied the protesting crowd, who least expected Nigerian
soldiers to openly fire at unarmed Nigerians, who were peacefully protesting
for the betterment of the country.
In the
ensuing confusion, the scene of the shooting was, in a jiffy, emptied of the
mammoth crowd of protesters, with survivors trying to help one another, and
hospitals in the vicinity overwhelmed with survivors suffering various forms of
injuries. In Television reports following the crackdown, the shooting at the
Lekki Toll-gates continued to reverberate in the background.
As news of
the brutal crackdown went round the city and the country, youths across the
country trooped out in their hundreds of thousands to confront authority,
unleashing the worst scene of national violence since the current
experimentation with democratic governance ensured in 1999. From Lagos, Osogbo,
Port Harcourt, Calabar, Benin City, Onitsha, Enugu and Aba in the South, to
Jos, Jalingo, Yobe, Kano and Kaduna in the Northern region, an orgy of violence
enveloped Nigeria, leaving in its wake looting sprees, mob lynching’s, mass
destruction of government and private properties, particularly the burning and
destruction of several police station. Conservative reports put the total
number of those killed at over 60 persons with properties amounting to several
billions of dollars destroyed or looted.
Worrisome order of
events
In assessing
the events which took place at Lekki tollgate in the evening of the 20th
of October 2020, it is important to appreciate and recognize key occurrences of
the day. These are as follows:
1. In the morning of the said 20th
October, the Governor of Lagos State, Mr. Sanwo-olu issued a statement
declaring a night time curfew across Lagos State. This statement clearly sought
to provide a legal basis for the deployment of force to evacuate the #EndSARS
protesters who had been at the Lekki Tollgates and at the Lagos State
Government Secretariat, non-stop, for almost two weeks.
2. Nigeria’s Federal Government owned
media muzzling agency, the Nigeria Broadcasting Commission (NBC) issued an ominous
Press Statement warning media outlets and users of social media to be extremely
careful on how they report the #EndSARS protests, promising dire consequences
for ‘infractions’. A media blackout may have been envisaged via the NBC’s
Statement.
3. Close Circuit Television Camera’s
(CCTVs) at the Lekki Tollgate were ominously dismantled – giving indication
that someone somewhere had a foreknowledge that events that ought not be
recorded were likely going to unfold;
4. A convoy of soldier arrived at the
Lekki tollgate shortly after 18.00 hrs – after the curfew announced earlier in
the day by the State Governor ought to have commenced;
5. Power supply to the Lekki tollgate
was suddenly switched off;
6. The shootings began.
Clearly,
from the foregoing, there was premeditation of the events that was to unfold
and shock not just Nigerians, but the entire international community.
Nigeria had
just produced its own version of the Tiananmen Square.
The Cover-up?
As expected,
within 24 hours of the beastly attack, the spokesperson of the Nigeria Army,
issued a Press Release denying Army involvement in the shooting and attendant
killings and injuries. A few hours later, the Lagos State Government, announced
plans to set up a Judicial Panel of Inquiry to investigate the incident.
In the midst
of the violence, the Nigerian ruler, Muhammadu Buhari, whose silence over the
attack by security men at the Lekki tollgate had been condemned by well-meaning
Nigerians, made a lackluster National Broadcast during which he did not even
mention the carnage that took place at the Lekki tollgate.
In an
incredulous stroke of folly, during a visit of a delegation of politicians led
by the Minister of Works and comprised of several State Governors and
Lawmakers, the Minister of Works claimed to have ‘discovered’ a hidden camera
at the scene of the shooting, which the said Minister claims will be useful to
resolving what actually transpired at the venue of the massacre.
Need for international
panel of inquiry
When one
takes into consideration the track record and penchant of the current Nigerian
regime with regards to non-implementation, non-compliance and non-adherence to findings
of Judicial Commission of Inquiry and interference in the administration of
justice as evidenced in the recent unconstitutional removal of the immediate
past Chief Justice of Nigeria and the elevation of ‘compliant’ persons to high
judicial positions, one is immediately wary of the zeal with which the governments
in Nigeria seem willing to set up Judicial Commissions to inquire into matters
in which the government itself, and its military, are deemed complicit.
Can a panel instituted
by a Government which itself is suspected of complicity in heinous acts be
trusted to come out with just findings or outcomes?
Will justice
be seen or deemed to have been served by the outcomes of a panel set up by a
party that itself ought to be investigated for its role in the Lekki Tollgate
shootings?
It is in
view of the commonsensical negative answers that the two questions above will
naturally elicit and the fact that the acts alleged constitute crimes within
the scope of the Rome Statute (to which the Nigerian State is signatory), that it is prudent in the circumstances to call
for the establishment of an International Commission of Inquiry into the Lekki
Tollgate shootings which took place in Lekki, Lagos State, Nigeria on the 20th
of October 2020.
Such an
International Panel of Inquiry can validly be established under the charter of
the International Criminal Court, the United Nations Security Council, the
African Union - African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights and the ECOWAS
Community Court of the Economic Community of West African States.
Picture: #EndSARS sign and emoji
