The 2020 Lekki Tollgate #EndSARS shooting victims deserve justice, the Osun State branch of the Committee for the Defense of Human Rights (CDHR) has urged local and international human rights organizations to demand.
The request comes as Nigerians observe the demonstrations’ third anniversary.
The Osun CDHR also demanded that the Federal Government make it mandatory that the Nigerian Flag be lowered to half mast on October 20 of every year in memory of those who lost their lives during the protests in a joint statement by Emmanuel Olowu and Bamitale Olufadeju, Chairman and Secretary, respectively.
The statement reads, “It is precisely the third anniversary of the Lekki #EndSARS shooting, and while the nation has not taken the step of documenting the event into the historical archives of the country, the memory of the victims is gradually fading in the minds of Nigerian citizens.
However, it should be noted that the Lagos State Government’s letter, dated July 19, 2023, and addressed to the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Health with the subject line “LETTER OF NO OBJECTION, MASS BURIAL FOR 103, THE YEAR 2020 ENDSARS VICTIMS,” confirms that the Nigerian military opened fire on and killed peaceful protesters.
The Lagos State Government, the Nigerian Military Force, and the Nigerian Government are all indicted in the letter, it should be abundantly evident.”
As a human rights organization, we think it defies reason for a government that was supposed to protect citizens’ lives and property to first claim that EndSARS protesters were not killed but then later claim that 103 dead bodies were picked up across Lagos State between October 19 and October 27, 2020, and that a whopping six hundred and twenty-five thousand naira only (61,285,000.000.00) was to be used for their mass burial.
“We hereby use this platform to draw local and global human rights groups’ attention to the need for justice for the victims.
While we urge that the Nigerian government make it a legal requirement to lower the Nigerian flag once a year in remembrance of the lives lost in the affair.
