Protests in Lagos have spiraled to violent clashes between the protesters and police as the latter shot dead many people in the ‘Lekki’ suburbs of Nigeria’s biggest city and its economic hub.
The security forces reportedly opened fire on the protesters on Tuesday night around 7 p.m., wounding hundreds, and killing around 12 people. While Nigerian President’ Muhammadu Buhari’ has appealed for calm as he promised that the police reforms would “gather pace,” there seems to be no respite yet as the tension spikes. According to reports by leading news channels, hundreds of protestors who had gathered at a tollgate in the city center of Lagos were attacked by the police personnel, who were ununiformed. Several witnesses have stated that the public was doing a peaceful protest where people were together in camps, singing and offering refreshments when security forces, including soldiers, shot live rounds across the crowd, killing at least seven.
Disturbing Graphic images started doing the rounds on social media depicting how the protestors were torched brutally and were begging for the police to get help for the injured. The protestors have also alleged that soldiers were included in the attacks, but the Nigerian Army has denied soldiers’ involvement on the clash site. Lagos government claimed that 30 people were injured.
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How the Protests in Lagos started?
The ongoing protests in Lagos and throughout the nation were on for 2 weeks against a police unit SARS, which is alleged to be atrocious and unjust to the people. Known popularly as SARS, the Special Anti-Robbery Squad had become a threat to the people of Nigeria. While pictures and videos highlighting police brutality by the SARS personnel surfaced on online media, there was an uproar amongst the people, following which the protest came upon the streets. While the government announced the scrapping of SARS and promised reforms about a week ago, the young brigade, which forms a majority of the Nigerian population, was not convinced by the government’s promises and carried out the protests demanding more reforms.
Governor condemns the protests in Lagos while imposing a 24-hour curfew
Shortly after the clashes were reported on Tuesday night, the government imposed a 24- hour curfew in the state. Lagos state governor ‘Babajide Sanwo-Olu’ announced the curfew with the exception of only “essential services” and “first responders”. However, many anti-police protestors violated the curfew and carried out demonstrations in a heavily armed police presence.
Sanwo-Olu stated that one life was lost in the Tuesday incident, however, it is not clear that the causality was a protestor or not. He also wrote in his tweet “I have watched with shock how what began as a peaceful #EndSARS protest has degenerated into a monster that is threatening the well-being of our society”, as he blamed the criminals and miscreants who have used the protests as a tool to disrupt the state’s calm and unleash havoc.
Nigeria’s private television station owned by a politician has also gone off-air. People have resorted to burning property. About 30 government buses were reportedly burnt down at a bus station. Also, many buildings were up in smoke as the clashes became violent.
