Lekki shooting: Death shouldn’t be the penalty for curfew breach, says Ajumogobia

Odein Ajumogobia, former minister of foreign affairs, has described the attack on #EndSARS protesters in Lagos as a murderous ambush of innocent youth.

On Tuesday, security operatives opened fire on unarmed protesters at the Lekki tollgate area of the state with many injured and some feared dead.

The incident caused an uproar, within and outside the country.

In a statement on Wednesday, the former minister said such “brutal” attack cannot be justified under any circumstances.

“I am outraged and heartbroken. Our children didn’t have to die. What we witnessed was a premeditated murderous ambush of innocent youths by what appears to have been a section of the Nigerian military,” Ajumogobia said.

“Understandably, the government was rattled by the scale of the protests and the passion and ingenuity exhibited in sustaining them, especially after the widespread defiance of yesterday’s curfew.

“The footage is sadly reminiscent of a common strategy, especially on our continent, for civil authorities to sponsor hoodlums and criminals to infiltrate and disrupt peaceful protests in order to create the chaos that provides a pretext to forcibly shut down such otherwise peaceful street demonstrations and protests.

“What we saw in Lagos last night was the conflict between two important constitutional rights: the citizen’s unquestionable right in a democracy to protest police brutality and impunity on the one hand and the undoubted right of the State to restrict movement in protecting public safety in appropriate circumstances, on the other. I do not therefore seek to second guess the Governor of Lagos State or indeed the President in the decision to impose a 24-hour curfew in Lagos State yesterday. The view from the top of the tree is always the clearest.

“But I am outraged because the penalty for the breach of a curfew by peaceful protesters should not be death! What the country witnessed last night was not a legitimate attempt to disperse a crowd of young people defiantly protesting the erosion of their fundamental rights and liberty but a brutal deadly assault by the very institutions empowered by the State to protect their rights, liberty and lives.”

Ajumogobia urged the federal government to identify and prosecute those responsible for the attack on unarmed protesters.