EXACTLY two years ago, a tragic event that has set the Lekki Toll Gate in Lagos aside as a historic monument of sorts took place. A crowd of unarmed youths singing the national anthem was shot at by troops in a bid to quell protests which had lasted for nearly two weeks.
The youths called for an end to police brutality. They advocated police reforms under the hashtag: #EndSARS. After the shooting, hoodlums took over, attacked the properties of the Lagos State Government, and also targeted some prominent individuals connected to the ruling class in Lagos. Businesses were looted and vandalised. The bad blood generated from the crisis nearly led to ethnic clashes.
Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, who immediately took conciliatory measures, set up the Lagos State Judicial Panel of Inquiry on Restitution for the Victims of the SARS-Related Abuses and Other Matters (Lagos EndSARS Panel) headed by Justice Doris Okuwobi. On November 15, 2021, the Panel in its 309-page Report, among other pronouncements, declared the shootings a “massacre”.
However, the Lagos State Government and the Federal Government rejected the tag of massacre, arguing there were no adequate and concrete proofs of such. Without unduly dwelling on the controversy which has since taken on a political tone, events of this nature provide all sides with ample lessons to avoid a future reoccurrence.
We must admit that the protesters allowed politics to creep into their patriotic agitation. It started as a protest against police brutality and the call to scrap the Special Anti-Robbery Squad, SARS.
When the Federal Government got the Police authorities to change the name of SARS to F-SARS which was seen as a mere cosmetic measure, the protesters started calling for an end to bad governance.
This, the authorities read as a call for “coup”, and hence the easy resort to the use of the army and a kinetic repression of unarmed protesters. The losses that the Lagos State Government and private businesses sustained were heavy. The attacks on policemen and their facilities crippled law enforcement for quite a while throughout the country.
These could have been avoided if the government had deployed the police with water cannons, teargas and dogs to manage the protests. There is no substitute for the rule of engagements prescribed by law in dealing with peaceful protesters.
The tendency to resort to the use of the military in a democracy creates more problems than it seeks to solve. It must never happen again.
We hope the Lagos State Government has made good its promise to implement the recommendations of the Justice Okuwobi Panel, particularly on providing succour to those who lost loved ones and sustained serious injuries.