Above photo: From Pan-African Community Action.
NOTE: Listen to the recent Clearing the FOG interview with Abiodun Aremu, secretary of the Joint Action Front in Nigeria, about the recent protests and the conditions that exist in Nigeria. – MF
Washington, DC – The End SAR Solidarity Network is mobilized DC area based activists to protest in front of the Embassy of Nigeria to demand justice for peaceful protestors in Nigeria who were massacred by the Nigerian army at Lekki toll gate on October 20, 2020 and demand an end to the continued repression of other activists.
On the 20th of October, 2020, the Nigerian army opened fire on peaceful protesters singing the Nigerian anthem and waving the Nigerian flag at Lekki tollgate, Alausa and other parts of Lagos.
This attack on protesters was one of the actions of brute force used by the Nigerian army and police against protesters who had condemned this same brutality in the #EndSARS protests which began in Nigerian early October and spread globally. Since the violent crack down on protesters, the Nigerian government has further exacerbated the situation by witch hunting protesters, freezing their bank accounts, seizing their passports, arresting and detaining them without charges, coupled with imposing fines on media houses and threatening the freedom of the press, as well as threatening the social Media bill to intimidate protesters.
To date, no one has been held accountable for the Lekki massacre and the murders of Nigerian civilians involved in the #EndSARS protests.
Many Nigerians are also keen to remember that November 18th marked seventy-one years since Nigerian workers were massacred at the Iva Valley coal mines, in Enugu. The Iva Valley massacre was an attempt by the colonial government to repress workers’ power.
Tunde Osazua, an organizer in the Black Alliance for Peace explains, “What is happening in Nigeria shows that the pigmentation, race, gender, and nationality of police officers and army soldiers is irrelevant when state actions are committed to protecting and advancing the an elite class committed to upholding an unsustainable neoliberal economic order.”
A civilian regime in an independent Nigeria ordered the massacre of the country’s youth a month ago in response to the struggle for democracy from below.
The End SARS Solidarity Network condemns the actions of the Nigerian government and demands for President Muhammadu Buhari, the federal government of Nigeria, as well as state governments to:
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Immediately take responsibility for the Lekki Massacre and ensure that all the culprits of this crime and other murders of civilians are brought to justice
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Cease and desist harassment of protesters and social media activists.
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Release all political prisoners and prisoners of conscience and to drop all charges against them.
Among the organizations that make up the End SARS Solidarity Network are: Black Lives Matter – Philly, Pan-African Community Action, Black Lives Matter Louisville, Black Market KY, Black Alliance for Peace, and Socialist Worker and & Youth League. The Network feels that, on behalf of those being silenced through repression and mass murder it is up to us to give them voice through our resistance.