Lekki Toll Gate: Another Of Their Diabolic Worth

By Kingsley Ahanonu

On the 20th of October, 2020, the ongoing #EndSARS protest took a new turn as the Nigerian Army became part of it. And my heart bleeds for the loss of lives that became the outcome. I reek of deep pain, knowing that these young fighters didn’t die in a warfare but were hacked to death in a process that was peaceful, and by the very people who are meant to protect them and for whom they fight!

Permit me to say that I stand in solidarity of the fallen youths, who died in the course of their demand for a Nigerian rebirth that meets modern global standards of nationhood. I stand with them in death as much as i identified with them when they stood with the vim of life pushing for end to institutional impunity. I wish also to reiterate my stand against inept and inefficient leadership that has again proved to be callous, insensitive and shameful with the largely detested and totally horrible #LekkiTollGateMassacre of peaceful, unarmed protestors.

It was so terrifying to have learned that the Nigerian security forces, particularly the Nigerian Army, opened fire on young peaceful protestors, whose only crime was to seek to demand an end to police brutality and demand for a redefination of their future and that of their fatherland. It was very much disturbing to have learned too that this happened even as they held the national flag and rendered the national anthem!

How more senseless, insensitive and diabolic could these evil forces be in the effort to obliterate and subdue genuine agitation?

The mission of the Nigerian government, suggested by the sinister silence, was to watch without practical assuage, the demand of the protest cuddle up into weakened silence. Not to be, however, the insistence of the demand wobbled them that soon they resorted to cheap blackmail through resorting to thuggery to give a distorted international view of the peaceful protest.

And yet when it was clear that the thwarted mechanism to muddle up the agitation was very obvious to all, curfew imposition became the next strategy, with the belief that the curfew would be flouted by a resilient army of young Nigerians, who have decided that there’s no going back in their vociferous demand for a totally reformed Nigeria that’s working.

Rightly to their expectation, and in upholding the spirit of the fight for a new Nigeria, the youthful protestors defied the indication of the worthless, self-betraying curfew and maintained their earnest demand to #EndPoliceBrutality and to #EndBadGovernment.

To further prove the evil premeditation of the worthless and uncalled curfew, the security lights at the Lekki toll gate, the bastion of the #EndSARS protest, allegedly were earlier in the day dismantled, in accordance with government directive by the Lagos state government officials. When a government cannot offer genuine response to demands that question its ineptitude but resort to cheap blackmail and undiluted wickedness, it shows just more than failure of leadership. It shows clearly how diabolic it is, and this is the much the Nigerian leadership is worth!

To this end, we see clearly that the bodies shattered, the blood spilled, the lives that were lost and the pains and sorrows that were inflicted were all planned and done in such a manner to hide them from global awareness. But they couldn’t achieve it, as the blood spilled and spurted a very loud cry that heavily disturbed the world.

By the shameless murder of its citizens, singing to its anthem- the nation’s creed of faith, the Nigerian government have shown how it does not believe in its sovereignty, future and progress. Any more reason to doubt the legitimacy and genuine intent of the protest in getting Nigeria off the clutch of the monstrous beasts and repositioning Nigeria for growth?

#EndPoliceBrutality #ReformNigeriaNow

#LekkiTollGateMassacre

Kingsley Ahanonu writes from Owerri