EditorialTHEWILL EDITORIAL: #EndSARS Report On Lekki Toll Gate Revisited

THEWILL EDITORIAL: #EndSARS Report On Lekki Toll Gate Revisited

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December 12, (THEWILL) – The official reactions to the resolution of the retired Justice Doris Okuwobi-led Judicial Panel of Inquiry on Restitution for Victims of SARS Related Abuses and Other Matters appeared to have further confused rather than clear salient issues surrounding the killing of #End SARS protesters at Lekki toll gate on October 20, 2020.

These issues, in our estimation, deal with the sanctity of human life and the rule of law, not the sterile and reductionist debate on whether there was a ‘massacre’ or none at the toll gate. They are also about what should be done to avoid a recurrence. That is why, for instance, it is sad to note that the Federal Government, which ordered the states to set up judicial panels of investigation, following the ugly fall out of the youth’s protests against police brutality and call for police reforms, would preemptively and hastily react to a leaked report of the Lagos panel and then dismiss it as “tales by moonlight,’ and “fake news.” It even went further to say the panel was illegal.

White Paper issued by the Lagos State Government shortly after the vetting of the panel’s report by a committee of four showed there was good news in it after all. Although the government in its 41-paged White Paper rejected the panel’s report that nine persons died when armed soldiers stormed the tollgate to disperse the protesters on that fateful day, it admitted, “that only one person died of gunshot wounds at 7:43pm at LTG on October 21, 2020,” according to the evidence of the pathologist, Prof Obafunwa.

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It said, among, others, “The evidence of the pathologist, Prof Obafunwa, that only three of the bodies that they conducted post-mortem examination on were from Lekki and only one had gunshot injury and this was not debunked.

“We deem it credible as the contrary was not presented before the panel.”

Even so, the admission that one and not nine died of gunshot wounds at the toll gate on October 20, 2020 is sufficient evidence that lethal weapons were actually used by security forces against unarmed youths involved in lawful protests under democratic governance.

Recall that under the Police Act, which President Muhammadu Buhari signed into law in 2020, it is clearly stated in Section 23 that, “during a protest that police shall protect peaceful protesters.”

Recall also that the law courts have severally ruled against obtaining police permission to organise a rally.

In a celebrated case in 2006, Justice Anwuli Chikere of the Kano High Court ruled that obtaining police license for rally was illegal, unconstitutional and that the name of the Inspector General of Police was unknown to the Police Order Act.

If one person was therefore killed through gunshot wound, if we were to go by the Lagos Government White Paper, then it logically follows that the security personnel of whatever arm of the Nigeria Armed Forces who deployed the officers and men that fired the fatal shot must be held liable and prosecuted.

Given the hostile atmosphere in the aftermath of the three-month peaceful protest, including the harassment of identified protesters through the freezing of their bank accounts, attack on them by hoodlums during and after the peaceful protests and the massive destruction of public facilities, particularly in Lagos, we think it is time to heal wounds and not to be politically correct to the point of inflaming passions with sterile debate about number of those killed.

We call on the Federal and state governments, especially Lagos State, to ensure that justice prevails at the end of the day.

While we thank the Lagos State Government for the speedy manner in which the inquiry was concluded amid the hostile political climate generated by the local and international reactions to the killings at the Lekki tollgate, we urge it to go a step further than the hefty N420 million compensation it had paid to victims and harmonise all the shades of views that have surrounded the panel’s report.

In the same instance, we call for restraint in demonising members of the Lagos panel who gave their time and effort in putting up the report, regardless of its shortcomings. These defects can be reconciled during the process of further investigation and eventual prosecution of culprits at the state and national levels after the state government has submitted accepted supra-national recommendations to Federal Government.

The focus of the #EndSARS protesters was a call to an end to police brutality as typified by a particularly notorious squad of the Nigeria Police Force, the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), police reform under a favourable climate of good governance based on the rule of law.

Sadly, these demands are still with us. Police extra-judicial killings and brutality are still rampant. Only recently the IGP had to intervene in a case involving some travelling youths in Kogi State whom a trigger-happy police slapped and robbed of N26,000. In another instance, a policeman was caught on camera going around with a Point of Sale (POS) machine to extort passengers on highways.

Building an equitable and justice system that will dissuade such human right violations should be the lessons drawn from the #EndSARS protest. That way, we can avoid a probable repeat of the sad Lekki tollgate incident that has cast a blot on the democratic credentials of the country.

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