Did it bother the government that the #EndSARS protesters left their homes to sit up all day in the open sun and not go back to their homes?
Most probably yes, because many foreign missions in Nigeria have asked the Nigerian government to accede to the demands of the protesting youths.
Many powerful heads of government across the world, the United Nations and the international community who had asked the Nigerian government to heed the demands of the youths also said that they were watching the development in Nigeria.
As a matter of fact, if sustained for thirty days without resolution with the home government, any protest march in member countries of the United Nations will attract the investigation of the world body, to examine the veracity of the demands of the protestants as to their conformity with the international standards for member countries.
For the avoidance of doubt, there is never a thing about governance in Nigeria that meets any recommended minimum international standard and the government will more likely lose the battle with the youths, and be in trouble with the United Nations, if the protest hits the 30th day.
The intelligent and resourceful Nigerian youths know this as do the government. So, there was a stalemate, and the protest trudged on and prolonged till the thirteenth day and then, the military siege and the shooting.
The reader can reason out the story to understand that the Nigerian government, though it denies sending the soldiers that mounted the military operation, may have taken a pre-emptive, self-protective military strike in what has gone down in the history of Nigeria and known internationally as #Lekkimassacre.
Before the military struck, those peaceful protesters at the Lekki Toll Gate could not be accused of looting, or even the simple ‘sin’ regarded in military language as ‘misdemeanor’ which could translate to the general language as ‘disruption of public peace’, because they were calmly camped and sited in one place, singing the national anthem endlessly, having observed prayer sessions on Friday (by the Muslims), and Sunday (by the Christians).
Nigerians are great people… the Christians moved away from the same chosen prayer ground for the Muslims to prayer as their prayer time came due, the same way Muslims moved away for Christians as at the Christian’s time of prayers.
No ethnic, no tribal, no political, no religious division. They were bonded in the understanding that ‘a common challenge unites the bitterest enemies’ so even if they had any ethnic, tribal, political and religious sentiments, these sentiments were subdued by this presence of the common challenge, the common foe.
So it happened that the actions of the government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria who was understood by the protesters as their common foe, united Nigerians in Lekki Toll Gate. But this unity did not last long, because subsequent events showed that the unity of Nigerians which the government deceitfully preach to Nigerians when they seek to conquer them is actually a very big threat to the oppressive tendency of the government.
This week, we will be taking a post-protest assessment of the #EndSARS campaign with a view to discover a most probable link available to Nigerians as a bridge through which to push the extraneous, yet more important issue of bad governance which was also raised in the second demand list and the grievances of the youths during the protest.
It is very obvious that the government saw the build-up in the development of the demands of the youths and the likely dangers that could accompany it, so, it moved very fast to stop the protest through the summary decision of ruthlessness as evidenced in the #Lekkimassacre.
But summary decisions outside the wide, varied and sundry means for the resolution of conflicts in a democratic society is very often, the first visible sign in the metamorphosis of a democratically elected government to fascism. I had observed this in the book “A History of Revolutions: Remote and Immediate Causes from an Analytical Perspective”.
This hypothesis is confirmed by a striking, unfortunate, sad and grave irony in the conflict between the government and Nigerian youths.
The ‘near success’ achievement of the #EndSARS protest leads Nigerians grappling with the meaning of an Igbo adage which says that a bird which flies off the ground and perches on an anthill has really not moved anywhere. The irony I am talking about which is a characteristic feature of a ‘democratic’ fascism is that while the youths in the first place came out to the streets and protested against extra-judicial killings by government SARS (Special Anti-Robbery Squad) they were extra-judicially stopped (without any restraining injunction from a Nigerian court) from protesting, and extra-judicially and summarily murdered (without any death sentences by a competent Nigerian court) in cold blood by the suspected government army.
Theoretically, all the original issues queried by the #EndSARS youth protesters have been addressed by both the central and state governments. Practically, we hope to see them materialize, yet chances, greater chances, are that all of those promises which would be said were extracted under duress from the government by the youths in Nigeria, may never be implemented.
This is the way it has been happening in Nigeria before, so, nobody will be surprised if it happens the same way this time.
The pattern of failed promises in Nigeria raises the suspicion as to whether government actually meant what it promised the youths. A bird which flies off the ground and peaches on an anthill has really not moved anywhere, so the #EndSARS protest may have gone bye without any immediate result to both the Nigerian youths in particular and other Nigerians in general.
The way and manner the government forced an end of the protest showed that it was only interested in sending the youths back from the streets to their homes to avert an international interference.
This, again, raises the question as to whether the government actually meant its promises to the youths.
I was surprised to read the opinion of a retired military officer who also served as the spokesman of the army, on the Lekki Toll Gate shootings. His opinion did not reflect a knowledge of immunity from being harmed by a security agent who chases a suspect flying the national flag even if the suspect is not chanting the national anthem.
This act is a sign of both surrender and submission as when one throws up his hands for a security agent. There may be no specific law covering this in Nigeria as the Nigerian legal system has not taken a complete corrective and rehabilitative human face. The general understanding in this matter, therefore, is that for this to apply, the target or suspect must not bear arms. The Lekki toll gate protesters did not bear arms.
In this same way, the personnel’s of the International Red Cross and other world recognized humanitarian service providers are kept safe even if they are caught up (as sometimes happen) in the web of the battle because they are always fully dressed in the International Red Cross gear and/or fly the lags of the organization. For this reason, too, their aircrafts are not downed by any of the parties to the war when such aircrafts fly over their air spaces.
What the security agent does at this time is to be sure that such surrender is not a decoy and then effect an arrest or if the person resists arrest (which is unlikely after surrender), to demobilize the suspect by any safe means (tear gas or other stun gadgets), and put the suspect to a forced arrest through a hand or even leg cuff.
If the motive for the decoy is to deceive and trap the security agent, the agent’s martial arts training, drills in prolonged resistance and his bayonet must come to his rescue at this time because the law does not still permit him to use his gun which is supposed to be the last resort to obtain a quick and summary solution, if the target/suspect is discovered to have concealed arms on his body, or making effort to dispossess the security officer of his gun.
A good security officer should be able to observe this process as it unfolds because one of the most important trainings of military officers is on patience and long suffering.
Let me stop here because the retired general should be conversant with the rudiments of combat.
Meanwhile, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michele Bachelet said that she was troubled that closed-circuit TV cameras and lighting in Lekki Toll gate were deliberately disabled prior to the shooting. By this, she said that she suspects the shooting was a pre-meditated, planned and a well coordinated operation by the authorities.
She insisted that the Nigerian authorities should investigate and prosecute the people found guilty of the massacre. But the question is, can the government investigate itself?.
On Tuesday, 27th October, 2020, exactly one week after the massacre some Nigerian newspaper reported that the opinion of the United Nations and the International Criminal Court on the Lekki Massacre was berated by the chief of Army staff whose posture on the massacre was condemned by many Nigerian legal luminaries.
This is the way it always starts. Somebody always believes that they are untouchable till they are eventually touched. When we reach the bridge, we shall cross it.
Nigerians are all eyes and ears watching and listening to know whether a grand alibi and cover-up the Nigerian way will be able to put wool over the eyes of the international community and douse the international pressure for justice to be done in the #Lekkimassacre.
Considering the unusual similitude in figures that make up the time, date and year of the incident which render it easy for remembrance, it is very clear that the perpetrators of the Lekki Toll Gate massacre are destined to make negative history in Nigeria because it may be for the reason of using this incident to change the direction of Nigeria that about the 20th hour on the 20th day of October, in the year 2020 that one of the worst crimes against the civilian population in Nigeria was committed.
Nigerians and the international community already have the full, minute-by-minute detail of the heinous crime, thanks to modern technology. We are all waiting to see how the events will play out, but we must all do something to influence it go our way.
One thing is certain; an example of the need to respect the sanctity of life of Nigerians by their leaders must be set with the perpetrators of the Lekki Massacre.
Commenting on the Lekki massacre and observing the urgent need to re-negotiate Nigeria, the National Christian Elders forum (NCEF) led by a retired military general, Theophilus Y. Danjuma, noted that, “it is curious that a government that claimed it negotiated with terrorists and integrated them into the military could not negotiate with unarmed protesters but chose to shoot them”.
There has been a groundswell of opinions from sundry quarters after the Lekki massacre to re-negotiate and re-structure Nigeria by the diverse indigenous ethnic nationalities of Nigeria.
Yet, the question is: what will be the motive for a person to plan or support the idea of a mass murder?.
In more civilized countries where criminology as a social science which, among other things, examines the relationship of behavioral patterns, obsessions, warped character traits, and impunity, with the urge to commit crime is applied in the discovery of motives for crimes, the attention of crime investigators are taken away from the perpetrators of the crime to the beneficiaries after a crime.
This is the underlying reason for the ‘fifth columnist’ method which I had earlier hinted about in last week’s work (#EndSars Campaign and the Urgency of Restructuring Nigeria), as something the government must be wary of and take quick and timely actions to peacefully resolve issues with the Nigerian youths.
In modern times where everything has been monetized and all types of services purchasable, crime merchants can actually be approached and engaged to do the dirty job by an aggrieved and disgruntled element. In modern crime chain, there is the merchant, the financer, the executor, the direct and indirect beneficiary.
Sometimes, but not at all times, the financer may be the beneficiary. Modern crime chain has witnessed very few occasions where the merchant is also the financer and the beneficiary. In most cases, the executor is a hired outsider.
Beneficiaries after crime are more prone to lend their support to crime because they are positioned away from the direct view of the law where their safety may be remotely guaranteed. For this reason, it is possible that some people in Nigeria being fingered with and suspected to be privy to the Lekki slaughter may actually be part of it because they may fear that the accrued benefits from the government which they are part of, may cease to come if the government in power has problems. Such direct or indirect beneficiaries can actually plan and fund crime either for a principal or as a ‘fifth columnist’ without the knowledge of his principal.
Unfortunately, the Nigerian investigative system is not yet complex and sophisticated enough to pursue such a weak but hidden and most potent link to crime. But we can try, starting with the #Lekkimassacre.
I read the defense of a south west topnotch and political heavy weight of the ruling party who was said to have made a trip to Abuja 24 hours before the incident at Lekki, and quickly shuttled out in his private jet to France.
I must say that the man’s visit to Abuja and his trip to France is not enough reason to accuse him of complicity in the Lekki massacre, unless there is an information about him not known by me.
The man’s defense was eloquent and it was written in good English with impressive phrases which show that the writer is well tutored and versed in English lexicon.
Apart from denying complicity which he has the right to, he neither answered the question as to having a prior knowledge of the incident before it happened, nor gave clue as to the probable suspects of such a large scale crime in a state where he is recognized as the Lord of the Manor.
As a matter of fact, he cleverly evaded revealing the apex stratum of the command chain in a state where one of his political errand boys is both the chief Executive Officer and the Chief Security Officer. He did this by picking holes in non localization in Nigeria of the rules of engagement of the military when it is deployed to maintain peace in civilian enclaves. He also made a case for the reformation of the Nigerian Police Force through the introduction of state police.
Apart from his defense which I give to him because he has a right to refute the allegations leveled against him, every other thing he was saying was a diversionary salvo from the grave issue at hand: that issue at hand is that Nigerian military personnel illegally attacked a congregation of peaceful Nigerian youths protesting against the activities of government agency, and slaughtered them in cold blood in a state where he is recognized as the grand master.
Joseph Goebbels, the chief propagandist of Adolf Hitler was so eloquent, elusive, and slippery that he continued to either deny, defend, or evade the murders committed by Hitler’s generals until the world through the Allied forces caught up with his pranks and he, together with his compatriots in crime, became the first set of beneficiaries of the judgment of the International Criminal Court shortly after the United Nations was inaugurated.
History always repeats itself, and Nigeria will not be an exception.