BLOODY TUESDAY IN NIGERIA

Bloody Tuesday October 20, 2020 in Nigeria 

The Nigerian Government cannot claim to be a democratic government. Today October 20, 2020 in Lagos State Nigeria and in several other cities around the country, it unleashed the brutal force of its military against unarmed youth protesting for a long overdue change in the country that is plagued by 

poor governance, poor infrastructure, very high level of unemployment for youth, excessive corruption at high levels of government, impunity of politically elected officials etc.  

For about two plus weeks, the Nigerian public both inside the country and in the diaspora has been fascinated and exited over the sudden awakening of Nigerian youth take to the streets all over the country to demand change in the current system of things in the country. Nigerian youths who have   

been used by numerous previous political parties and governments with promises of jobs, opportunities and a better life to achieve their political aims. Once in power, the youth are forgotten until the next round of political campaigning.  

 This particular protest unlike any previous youth agitation appears to be different and took the government by surprise. A very well organized and community supported and funded youth protest has emerged demanding real change in Nigeria and is ongoing and generating momentum daily. The government thought initially that it would go away after a couple of days, but the demonstrations and street protests have persisted.  There are some reasons why the protests may not be going away any time soon! Evidence from the protest reveals widespread community and even diaspora support for the youths. Support for the protesters include free food from the community, free medical treatment from volunteer doctors and nurses, free supplies of needed materials including raincoats and umbrellas etc. to ward off the rains, free radio and television coverage of the protesters and their demands, monetary donations from well-wishers to designated banks from within and outside Nigeria etc.

The large protests has been persistent and becoming disruptive to normal economic and day to day activities in many parts of the country. However, instead of the Federal government to negotiate with the protesters and find a way to understand their “seven points demands” etc. for change from decades of neglect and dissatisfactions over the decay and corruption of the country, the government decided to snuff off or silent the protest by the use of brute military force against the unarmed group of youth demanding change. Imagine the use of machine gun fire directed at a crowed of unarmed youth. 

Observers of the Nigerian scene like this writer, expected some level of the use of government coercion to subdue the relentless protests, but our hope was that in the democratic dispensations that Nigeria has adopted to follow since the return to civilian rule, nothing of the sort like we have witnessed in the Lekki toll gate incident would occur.

The tactics adopted by those behind the killings shows and reveals their premeditated intention to kill as many youths as possible, and the succeeded. For example, prior to executing their killing mission, the Lagos state government declared a curfew and used it as the pretext to intervene. One may suppose that the government policy makers expected the youth to disobey the curfew order, and they did. This provided the needed justification to intervene. 

The disobedience to government curfew directives was followed by sending in the military. We now understand that the particular set of military boys that opened live fire directly on the crowd of protesters were soldiers from the 65 Battalion Bonny camp led by their commanding officer by the name of  one Lt Col S.O. Bello. Who directed Lt Col S.O. Bello and his team of murderous soldiers to open fire on unarmed Nigerian youth is still not clear at this point in time. We understand they are writing their reports to the authorities that demand to know who directed the military to the Lekki toll gate scene.

The premeditated actions of the policy directives of those behind this gruesome event is obvious. First they removed the monitoring circuit cameras around the Lekki tool gate so the evidence of their killing actions would not be recorded. This was followed by shutting off the lights around and at the toll gate where the youth were gathered singing the Nigerian National anthem etc. In the darkened atmosphere of the scene and without any announcement or warning to the protesters they opened gun fire directly on the crowd of youths.  Several incidences of point blank shooting and killing of innocent demonstrators occurred today not only in Lekki Lagos State but in many other Nigerian major cities in the guise of enforcing a declared government curfew.

What a brutal and unnecessary action from the Nigerian government and its soldiers supposed to protect the Nigerian people. This particular action and the many murderous actions of the government police over the last two weeks only amplifies the widespread stereo type of western governments criticisms that African governments do not care about the lives of its people. 

Similar events as we witnessed in Lekki toll gate take place regularly in other African countries daily. Uganda for example has been plagued with officially sanctioned extrajudicial killings for several years. The government of president Museveni recruits desperate people from Burundi Rwanda, Congo etc. into his armed forces. They kill and treat people like trash. Zimbabwe is another case in point.  Under these circumstances that we have witnessed taking place in Nigeria and other African countries, how does one justifiably argue against such western governments stereotyping of African rulers.

Nigeria is the largest economy in African and is supposed to be the pace setter in governance and human rights for other Afrcan nations. The international community must denounce the barbaric actions of the Nigerian army and government and come to the defense of the rights of the Nigerian people to protest against poor governance and excessive brutality of corrupt and ineffective government against its own people.