Several protesters in Nigeria’s city of Lagos were arrested at a protest held against the reopening of the Lekki tollgate, the epicenter of the #EndSARS movement.
Police consequently brought them before a mobile court in Yaba for a breach of the peace and violation of COVID-19 protocols.
The Lagos State Judicial Panel of Inquiry probing police brutality and alleged killings of #EndSARS protesters by soldiers at the Lekki Tollgate, had ruled that the tollgate be handed back to its operator, Lekki Concession Company, after forensic experts submitted their report on the October 20, 2020 incident.
Four out of the nine members of the panel had faulted the report of the forensic experts hired to comb the scene for evidence and rejected the application by the LCC to take possession of the facility, which had been shut down since the probe of the shootings started.
The protests to end police brutality came to an end abruptly after the shooting in Lagos and a wave of looting and unrest followed. The government also promised reforms in response.
Earlier in the week, the Nigerian government had warned against holding new protests at Lekki, saying the rallies could descend into violence in the name of justice.
End SARS is a decentralized social movement, and series of mass protests against police brutality in Nigeria.
The slogan calls for the disbanding of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), a notorious unit of the Police with a long record of abuses.
By Hussein Jama
February 14, 2021
