Four Years On, Nigeria’s Police Still Respond To EndSARS Memorial With Violence 

Every year since 2020, Nigerians have gathered at the Lekki Toll gate to memorialize the massacre of innocent protesters of police brutality by the Nigerian Army.  The protest called for the scrapping of the rogue Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) involved in the killing of many innocent Nigerians. 

This year, like the last four, men of the Nigerian Police Force stationed at the Lekki Toll Gate area of Lagos State shot teargas at scores of people commemorating the fourth year remembrance of the EndSARS protest victims. Many of the protesters were killed on the night of October 20, 2020, at the Lekki Toll gate, making the Toll Complex a symbolic spot for Nigerians. 

A large banner held by the protesters at the Lekki Toll Gate read, “Time to bring Buhari and Sanwo-Olu to justice. EndSARS massacre.” The demonstrators were calling for the arrest and prosecution of former President Muhammadu Buhari who was in power when the massacre happened, and Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, who attributed the massacre to ‘forces beyond his control.’

Despite the peaceful nature of the gathering, police officers responded by firing tear gas canisters at the crowd. Lagos State Police Commissioner, Olanrewaju Ishola, while speaking to reporters said the protesters did not have police clearance and permission before exercising their freedom of peaceful assembly.  

“Constitutionally, they should write to me as the Commissioner of Police of their intention to do so, they didn’t write to us and as such, any of such gathering is illegal and by extension, no police will not allow it to happen,” the State Police Commissioner, Olanrewaju Ishola said. 

He tried to clarify that the police authority is not trampling on citizens’ constitutional rights, but he stressed that in exercising their rights, they must consider the place of the laws of the land. 

Nigerians have made it a tradition to gather at the Lekki Toll Gate annually, seeking justice for those killed during the protests, despite the optics, the police have consistently responded by using force to disperse demonstrators.

In the aftermath of the massacre, some Nigerians are yet to get justice, and one such is the family of Pelumi Onifade. Onifade a journalist intern with GboahTV was last seen alive on October 24, 2020, in the custody of police officers in Lagos State capital, Ikeja, where he had gone to cover an attempted break-in at a government facility. Following a suit at the Federal High Court order after Media Rights Agenda (MRA), a press freedom and human rights organization, the Lagos State government has set up a coroner panel to investigate the death of Pelumi Onifade.