Towards the end of last year, a wave of protests and dissent spread across the country triggered by protests against police brutality and disbandment of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS). In the aftermath, it has become clear that the momentum was disrupted through the use of government-sanctioned violence on peaceful protesters. The government has also made a concerted effort of denying its role despite the presence of evidence to the contrary.
The Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed has been complicit in this erasure by using his platform to deny it, going as far as calling the protests “massacre without bodies”.
He said;
Nigeria did not join the ICC so it can become a pawn on the court’s chessboard. It beggars belief to see that a nation that is fighting an existential war against bandits and terrorists is constantly being held down by an international body which it willingly joined. Nigeria is a sovereign state and will not surrender its sovereignty to any organization.
ICC, Amnesty International, and their cohorts should desist from threatening our troops and putting the security of our country in jeopardy. Enough is enough. It is sad that these organizations mostly rely on fake news and disinformation to reach their conclusions, as witnessed during the Endsars protest when CNN – an otherwise respected global news network – went to town with fake news of a massacre. As it turned out, it was a massacre without bodies. As you are aware, we called CNN out and also petitioned the network.