Press Statement Issued by the Coalition for Revolution (CORE); 16/11/2021
1. The report of the Lagos State Judicial Panel of Inquiry on Restitution for Victims of SARS Related Abuses and Other Matters has settled the argument once and for all: there was a massacre at Lekki Tollgate and across Lagos on 20th October 2020, and this was carried out by soldiers and the police who were ordered to kill unarmed citizens waving the country’s flag and singing its national anthem
2. This had been an incontrovertible fact from the word go. However, several government officials and their hangers-on have repeatedly tried their very best to distort history which unfolded before our eyes. As recently as 20th October 2021, the minister of information, Mr Lai Mohammed described the popular assertion that there was a massacre as a scam.
3. This reiterates further findings of the Judicial Panel of Inquiry: the federal and Lagos state governments as well as the management of Lekki Concession Company were involved in an elaborate cover-up scheme, which began just before the premeditated massacre and has lasted till yesterday.
4. We, therefore, wish to commend the courage, forthrightness and objectivity of the Report of the #Endsars Panel, its copious admission of ‘mass casualty’ on the night of 10/20/2020 in Lekki, its reification of our inalienable right to assembly and protests, its accurate observation that the violent riots that broke out from 10/21/2020 which resulted into attacks on a few state institutions, were a direct response to the state violence meted out to peaceful protesters throughout the night of 10/20/2020.
5. It is also important at this point to stress that the mass killings of peaceful protesters perpetrated by the Army and later, the Police during the #Endsars Protests, is not by any means an isolated event. It is part of an unbroken history of violence by these repressive agencies of the state both in colonial and the post-colonial era. This situation prompted the #Endsars movement in the first instance, and sadly, has continued unabated since the #Endsars revolt Within the last one year, several cases of extrajudicial killings have been recorded all over the country.
5. At this juncture, what is to be done is clear, and we thus demand:
– Immediate and unconditional release of the over 300 persons arrested and being held in prisons in Lagos state and across the country for participating in the EndSARS protests or arbitrarily as part of state repression of the popular rebellion
– compensation for all victims of the EndSARS rebellion, including those incarcerated, maimed, wounded mentally scarred, and the family members of those killed
– bringing those who ordered the killings to justice, no matter how highly placed they are
– the immediate resignation of Mr. Babajide Sanwolu as governor of Lagos state, and Maj Gen Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) as president. The buck of this massacre rests squarely on their table
– finally, we call on all Nigerians of all shades and opinion to rouse to the need to rescue the country from the stranglehold of a vicious, bloody and unrepentant ruling cabal desperate to hold on to power at the detriment of the collective aspirations and humanity of overwhelming percentage of our people.
Viva Nigeria Youth!
Viva Nigerian Working People!
#RevolutionNow!
Baba Aye
Co-convener
Gbenga Komolafe
Co-convener