EndSARS, Lekki Toll-Gate and the lessons within
EndSARS was not a failure, we passed our messages but the lessons within should guide us for future situations. (Photo credit: Twitter) |
I lost a
church member to police brutality, dude was at a bar, watching football over a
drink and a trigger-happy police officer’s stray bullet hacked him down. #EndSARS
was a movement that was long overdue, we had to do something about the indiscretions
of some members of the Nigerian Police Force.
I had a very long hard thought
over this topic, it’s a sensitive one and I know a lot of people get emotional
about it, it is what it is really, we have to take stocks at some points and
the fact that we can’t all agree on same things is one of the beauties of
existence.
20th October of 2020
would go down as one of the darkest days of Nigeria as a nation, but events leading
to that gory night could have been avoided if the people saddled with security
and the enforcement of law and order did their jobs without issues.
First I’d love to state this, the
welfare package of the Nigerian Police Force is nothing to write home about,
they still don’t earn well even after the reforms and the government should do
better, a part of the agitations of the #EndSARS movement was addressing that
but I doubt the NPF saw that.
Make no mistakes, there are bad
lawyers, there are bad doctors and there are bad engineers too or what do you
call those ones that do shabby jobs on road contracts? It rains everywhere but
for those expected to protect us, they shouldn’t be the ones killing us.
There are good cops, but the
ratio is embarrassingly alarming in favor of the bad ones, I’ve had my fair
share of their foolishness and would dedicate another episode to that, but
today I’m analyzing that night in Sodom and Gomorrah as perpetrated by the
Nigerian Government.
A lot of people hate Governor
Sanwo-Olu for the atrocities of the uniformed men that night, I feel a lot for him.
How bad can your luck get? He’s had to deal with situations beyond his direct
influence, Covid happened just when he was settling into office and then #EndSARS
followed, tough luck.
But was Sanwo-Olu actually at
fault for whatever it was that happened at the Toll-Gate that night? Like I
said earlier, most people are emotional about the whole show but if we
look at everything logically and critically, we’d see how helpless he was,
should it be so? That would be an entirely different matter.
I am not absolving the governor totally, but did you see him during live interviews and when he was reading from a sheet? The inconsistencies gave him away, he spoke his own mind during live calls, we can guess who wrote what he was reading from the sheets with the way his voice kept failing him, even he couldn't believe what he was reading most times.
It started with a brave decision
by a tired group of people to stand up and be counted, fight for a just cause
and restore some sanity into the police unit, it was a noble cause and one we
all should be proud of, regardless of how it ended, everyone involved in that
fight was a winner.
The demand was simple, scrap the
Special Anti-Robbery Squad for good, their harassment and murderous activities
were getting out of hand, to them and their horrible mind, every young guy living
a good life is a cybercriminal, they extort legitimate people and even kill,
that had to stop.
It was a great development to see
people leaving their work place to join the protest, I couldn’t join physically
because I was down to covid at the time, if you’re my friend I’m sure you know
me enough that I have coconut head, I would be at the fore-front, but we live
to fight another day and I didn't relent on the keypads.
Three things were poorly handled
by the #EndSARS movement, I was one of them and I have never been afraid to
identify with them. One of the mistakes we made was failing to appoint leaders
early. When the governor went to the protest ground and asked to meet the leaders,
that was a missed opportunity.
I understand the reason behind that
by the way, we didn’t want to be easily manipulated, but we all knew some were
more vocal and more active, we knew the leaders, why then didn’t we trust them
to handle it? In the end we appointed them to the committee post #EndSARS, so
why not earlier?
Secondly, we overstretched the
campaign and we paid for it dearly. The first few days rattled the government
and at the point we saw a video of Sanwo-Olu presenting our case to the
president, we should have retreated and wait for them to act, if they refuse to
behave after a while, we strike again.
Not knowing when to stop costs us
lives, it became easy for hoodlums to be imported from outside Lagos, it became
easy for the government to infiltrate us with some “agberos” and thugs, then
when they started destroying Lagos, we were blamed for it, we should have
stopped earlier.
And finally, the moment the
governor imposed a curfew, we should have left the protest ground. I know some
people will accuse me of blaming the victims, life has taught me to learn when
to choose my battles, the handwriting was very clear on the wall, we shouldn’t
have put anything past our government.
Did people die that night? I say
emphatically, YES. Who killed them? I wasn’t there so I wouldn’t be able to
say, but it will forever be wicked of anyone to say lives weren’t lost that
night; what remains shady is the number of lives lost and the identity of those
that pulled the triggers.
We weren’t the ones that torched
Lagos, we weren’t the ones that looted malls and homes; I saw videos of crazy
things some of us did on the protest ground, the government had footages of
some of us doing hard drugs and X-Rated things and that was their premise for
their actions, but let’s leave that for now.
The point we saw some individuals
removing items from the Lekki Toll-Gate, we should have retreated, then the
light went off, at that point we still had a couple of hours to flee, stubbornness
is part of our genetic make-up, it was pure naivety and we paid for it.
I am convinced that someone will
one day pay for everything that happened that night, we have learned our
lessons and I hope we don’t let emotions get the better of us next time, it was
a noble cause, one I’m proud of, maybe if I didn’t have covid that day I’d be
dead by now, because I could have stayed too…
Like you said this topic is sensitive,all i can say is we did well,i could not have been prouder.Adeola
ReplyDeleteThank you Deola
DeleteI have 2 questions and this is not to attack you or anything, trust me, I'm your number 1 fan.
ReplyDelete1. How can we say the governor of Lagos state had no power/control over what happened? How did Lagos get here? How did Sanwo become so powerless in a state he's governing? I remember one police officer disobeyed his order in Magodo sometime 2 months ago. How long do we keep saying "he has no control ", if truly he has no power, what is he still doing there?
2. If memory serves me right, LSG declared a 5pm curfew around 3pm on a work day, how did they expect people to get home before the curfew started. The people that remained at the toll gate, what if they were there, waiting for the rush hour to be over before heading for their various homes? What if they felt " its better for the curfew to meet all of us together than meet us individually on our way home and be arrested for not obeying the curfew "?
On the police that disobeyed Sanwo, it shows u that he doesn't take orders from Sanwo.
Delete2. The govt can declare a curfew anytime as it happened during the invasion of the national assemble in America. There are laws to these things but like Ramsey said we get coconut head and we listen to people who knows next to nothing. It was someone who tweeted that they shld continue with the protest that after 30days the UN will intervien. The same person even went ahead and told them to seat down on the road and wave the flag that soldiers won't shoot 😂 wo, don't let me talk again jare. Like u said it is a sensitive matter, so I won't say more than that. Ramsey just to let u know they didn't remove the light like u said... Maybe, u didn't see the news when they denied it that the stuff the man holding was a cam not light.