Quest to Re-Open Lekki Tollgate is a Symbolic Admittance that the Government Supervised the Massacre

Politics and Governance | GOVERNMEND

Nigeria had never witnessed any coordinated “leaderless” protest like the Endsars protest. The protest that lasted two weeks spread beyond the shores of Nigeria to be a global call, for the Nigerian government to put an end to police brutality, that threatened the existence of every successful young Nigerian. Unlike many protests in the past that never saw the light of the day or ones that had to be quashed after some elements would have taken bribe to halt the demonstration of grievances.

After the Endsars protest lasted two weeks, with a global spread, it became glaring to the government that the ruled were winning the fight, and that led to one of the greatest undoing of this Buhari-led-administration. 20th of October 2020, is made an epoch as a result of the killing of unarmed protesters – demanding a police reform that would possibly end police brutality in the country. The mass killing encoded “20-10-20 massacre” was the first planned mass killing of youth by Nigerian government since the creation of Nigeria in 1914. Scores of youth were shot, corpses carted away like groceries in store, many injured were prevented from being treated by the medical team that rushed down to the spot. To say it was gruesome wouldn’t do justice to the explanation that best suits an open fire on unarmed protesters with flags on their hands, united in the spirit of patriotism. Like many of them, a man was reciting the national anthem until he was kept shut by a direct bullet that penetrated through his forehead.

20-10-20, a day Nigeria killed her own offsprings. Even a mentally imbalanced mother would still give all it takes to protect a child that swam down to earth with her umbilical cord, that’s how natural it can be to defend what is yours. But Nigeria rose and killed her own youths without a further thought. The number of the dead cannot be ascertained as they were kept in an undisclosed morgues under the directives of the Nigerian Army.

After 100days of the massacre, nobody is held responsible yet. The question over 33million Nigerian youths have been asking is: who ordered the shooting?
Nobody has been identified by the panel of inquiry to have ordered the shooting. They suspended and eventually discontinued the panel without any remarkable achievement, and the next thing we heard is that the scene of the massacre should be reopened by the government to exploitative activities, and move on like nothing ever happened on the spot where no fewer than 17 able bodied youths were gruesomely murdered by the Nigerian Army, funded by people’s taxes on the order of an anonymous authority.

When you think there’s enough injustice in the land, Nigerian government comes to tell you, there’s no limit to injustice and its dimension in a state where the citizens conform. Until there’s an answer to who ordered the shooting of 20-10-20 at Lekki Tollgate, any actions of the government to re-open the toll gate is an admittance to the fact that Nigeria killed her youths, and posterity would forever keep the nefarious leaders in black pages in Nigerian history.

Seyi Oyetunbi