On 20/10/20, while we were still basking in the euphoria of our 60th ‘Independence’ anniversary celebrations, our defenceless youths, who were passionately singing our national anthem and patriotically waving our three-coloured flag (1: Green; 2: White; 3: Green: abi no be three?), were mowed down by unknown soldiers at Lekki. Their offence? They had the guts to say enough is enough. They demanded that the indescribable excesses of our police officers, who were being paid to protect them, be stopped thenceforth.
The Lekki affair was painful and shameful, especially given the extent to which the government went to change the narrative. The great Lai called it the first massacre without corpses (the corpses have been identified); our usually hardworking Governor Sanwo-Olu denied any knowledge of how the soldiers came calling (it was revealed that he invited the soldiers); the soldiers said they never left their barracks on that day. Eventually, they admitted they were there but claimed they did not shoot, then later conceded that they shot but did not kill anybody (there has been scientific evidence that people were shot). DJ Switch has claimed, “ad nauseam”, that at least 15 people were murdered in that one-sided combat, while the Lagos EndSARS Panel admitted autopsy reports on 99 people killed during that period, at least three of whom were killed at Lekki. The autopsy report was presented by Prof. Obafunwa, the Chief Pathologist of LASUTH. The Nigerian Police Force (who put “FORCE” in their name, sef?) went to court to challenge the panels established to probe their brutality and then turned around to deny the court case (Ik Muo, 2021, End SARS: We Are Where We Were).
Sunday, 20/10/24, was the fourth anniversary of the inglorious EndSARS affair, and our security operatives behaved as usual. They tear-gassed and arrested the memorialists, herding them into the infamous black maria—the kind of vehicle the colonial masters would have used to ferry the Enugu Coal Miners. One of the memorialists reported that the cash at hand dwindled by about 50 percent after his release. Even before then, not much had changed. The most recent unfortunate incident occurred on 18/10/24 when some overzealous policemen at Federal Bus Stop, Ipaja-Ayobo, accosted a man named Bidemi, accused him of “yahooism” (just because of his appearance), chased him into a canal, and tragically, the man died.
Read also: Police release 22 arrested #EndSars memorial protesters
Since the 20/10/23 (the third EndSARS anniversary), a lot has happened—signs that our security forces have not repented one bit. On 29/3/23, some policemen in Edo State deliberately drove over a handcuffed man! Read that again and let it sink in: policemen drove their patrol van over a fellow human being! Even if he were Oyenusi! I don’t know whether our police go on special training on how to ‘deal’ with unarmed Nigerians! In February this year, a group of policemen extorted $3,000 from a fellow Nigerian in Port Harcourt, while another group upped the ante by extorting N30 million from a compatriot in Abuja! In March 2024, Barr. Olamide Olaniyi was beaten like a common criminal when he went to a police station in connection with his client’s case.
We also know how the Okuama community in Delta State was subjected to scorched-earth treatment over the unfortunate murder of some soldiers. The same treatment was meted out by unknown soldiers to the Igbomotoru community in Southern Ijaw LGA of Bayelsa in connection with the Okuama massacre. At another time, some women in the Oteri community in Ughelli North Local Government Area of Delta State decided to protest against police highhandedness and brutality. They tasted the ire of the policemen for daring to protest, and they were greeted with live bullets—five of them ended up in hospital beds. However, one Monday Okocha from Abiriba was not so lucky; he was murdered by trigger-happy policemen because he refused to give them a handshake.
Many of the EndSARS protesters were detained and are still being detained, even as the Community Court of Justice, ECOWAS, ruled in July 2024 that the Federal Republic of Nigeria violated the human rights of some EndSARS protesters, specifically Obianuju Udeh and two others.
But just after that ECOWAS Court ruling, the End Hunger & Bad Governance (EndHuBaGo) movement erupted in Nigeria, and what did the government and security forces do? They repeated all those sordid actions from the EndSARS protests, and in some instances, did even more. This is a clear indication that we have learned nothing and forgotten nothing.
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