YOUTH RIGHTS CAMPAIGN (YRC)
Public Statement
ECOWAS COURT OF JUSTICE JUDGEMENT ON #ENDSARS IS AN INDICTMENT ON THE FORMER PRESIDENT BUHARI-LED FEDERAL GOVERNMENT AND GOVERNOR SANWO-OLU LED LAGOS STATE GOVERNMENT WHO HAD BOTH DENIED THE KILLINGS AND ATTACKS EVER HAPPENED
- YRC Demands Arrest and Prosecution of all those Responsible
• Adequate Compensation for All Victims and immediate and unconditional release of protesters still in Detention - For a Concerted Campaign of Youth Groups, Socialists, Labour Movement and Pro-Struggle Civil Society Organizations to Ensure Justice is Served
The Youth Rights Campaign (YRC) welcomes the fact that the ECOWAS COURT OF JUSTICE has found the Nigerian Government guilty of gross human rights abuse during and after the #EndSars protest in October, 2020. However, we hold that the compensation ordered by the court for the victims is not adequate. Nonetheless, we hereby call for the speedy implementation of the judgment.
The court ruled last week Wednesday 10 July 2024 that “the Nigerian government’s actions, particularly its disproportionate use of force at the Lekki Toll Gate in Lagos, breached several international human rights standards, including articles 1, 5, 6, 9, 10, and 11 of the African charter on human and peoples’ rights”. Particularly, the court found the government guilty of violations of the applicants’ rights to security of person, prohibition of torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment, rights to freedom of expression, assembly, and association, duty to investigate human rights violations, and right to effective remedy. The court therefore mandated the Nigerian government to pay N2 million in compensation to each victim named in the suit. They also directed Nigerian government to investigate and prosecute its agents responsible for these violations, and report to the court within six months on the measures taken to implement this judgment.
For us in the Youth Rights Campaign (YRC), this judgement confirms what we and many other activists and groups have always pointed out which is that the Nigerian government is guilty of drowning a genuine and peaceful youth revolt for police reforms and government accountability in a sea of blood. Recall that the report of the Lagos State Judicial Panel of Inquiry on restitution for Victims of SARS Related Abuses and Other Matters also irrefutably confirmed that the Nigerian army and the police, acting on the instructions of the former President Buhari Federal Government and former Governor Sanwo-Olu led Lagos State Government, indeed shot and killed harmless and defenseless protesters on the night of 20 October 2020 during the nationwide protest against police brutality.
We again demand that this judgement must be immediately implemented by the government. We also demand that all those identified to have been responsible directly and remotely for the killings must be arrested and prosecuted. We also demand that all victims of the shooting be adequately compensated and the release of all #EndSARS protesters who are still in detention, across the country. They also must be compensated for being illegally detained.
This judgement is a damning indictment on the Federal government and the Lagos State government who went to great length to deny any killings happened. Most remarkable is the former Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed, who called the event of 20th October 2020 “a massacre without bodies” and has probably spent the most time, resources and energy to disparage the events of that day and Brigadier General Taiwo who lied under oath. The length to which the ‘Minister of Lies’ went to can only be explained by the desire to hide the Federal Government’s direct or indirect links to the massacre.
We also recall the charade of lies and propaganda forged by Lai Mohammed and the state machinery backing him to bury the truth, journalists, activists like DJ Switch and bloggers were run aground, forced on exile or persecuted for insisting on the truth. Many left their homes and jobs never to return again for fear of retribution. A faceless hit squad reportedly prowled the streets of Lagos visiting homes and families of known EndSARS protesters to intimidate them into silence while many reportedly received death threats on their phones. All the while, the living victims of the shooting of 20th October 2020, some with their limbs amputated, and the families of those killed crouched in fear, shame and anguish as government officials, the most prominent being Lai Mohammed, daily denied and disparaged them on the radio, television, newspapers and social media. Bank accounts belonging to prominent protest organizers were sealed while those of them who had reasons to travel overseas were subjected to harassment and humiliation at the airports. Broadcast stations like CNN were disparaged and threatened with sanctions by the government. Not least is the ban of Twitter which is was justified using the event of October 20, 2020 as an example of how citizens use social media to spread lies and panic.
Against this background, any serious attempt to implement the ECOWAS court judgement especially the aspect that concerns prosecution of those responsible for the human rights violations meted to ENDSARS protesters cannot ignore or leave out the roles of former President Buhari, Lagos state Governor Sanwo-olu, Lai Mohammed, the Inspector General of Police at the time, Mohammed Adamu and the Police Commissioners across the country as well as the top of the army alongside many others who took part directly or indirectly in the killing of innocent protesters. To this extent, we demand their immediate prosecution as ordered by the ECOWAS court. Furthermore, any elected or appointed government official seen or heard to have used the state resources at their disposal to deny or cover up the truth of what happened on the 20th of October 2020 should be similarly prosecuted.
In conclusion, YRC calls for a concerted campaign involving youth groups, Socialists, the labour movement and activist organizations to ensure that justice is served and all those activists and protesters still in detention are immediately released. This will require even more mass meetings, protests and demonstrations.
We note that years after, the original demand of the youth revolt which is an end to police brutality is yet to be fully achieved. Instead police brutality and state repression have even increased. We need to intensify the struggle against police brutality and attacks on democratic rights. But given the rising poverty and starvation facing many families today on account of the brutal pro-capitalist economic policies of the government, such a movement also needs to begin to fight for jobs, an end to high cost of living, payment of living wage, end to anti-poor policies etc.
At the moment youth unemployment is over 42% – this translates to tens of millions of graduates of tertiary institutions and non-graduates without jobs or sustenance. This is the dire situation that forces many into crime something which the state now uses to justify the need for such murderous units like Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS). Our struggle can only win fundamental changes when we deal with the root of our problems. Both police brutality and the rising poverty and unemployment are products of the capitalist economic system which is based on profit and corruption. We need to organize to end this system of greed and inequality by building a mass movement that fights on the day to day issues and a mass political alternative to bring to power a workers and poor peoples’ government armed with Socialist policies.
Signed.
Adaramoye Michael Lenin
National Coordinator
08137051249
Francis Nwapa Watch
National Secretary
07032776665
