Five Years After Lekki Toll Gate Shooting, Calls for Accountability Persist

By Petpetua Onuegbu

Abuja, October 20, 2025 (NAN) Five years after the tragic events of October 20, 2020, when armed security operatives opened fire on peaceful #EndSARS protesters at the Lekki Toll Gate in Lagos, Nigerians and human rights advocates say justice remains elusive.

In a statement titled “Waiting for Accountability: 20.10.20 — Five Years On,” Global Rights, a civil society organisation, lamented that no one has been held responsible for what it described as “a gross crime against Nigeria’s democracy.”

Executive Director of Global Rights, Abiodun Baiyewu, said the government’s failure to act on the findings of judicial panels of inquiry across states, and its neglect of police reforms demanded by citizens, represent a deepening erosion of public trust.

“The wounds of 20.10.20 still ache. Many victims remain unacknowledged, their families uncompensated, and their killers unpunished,” Baiyewu stated.

According to him, the #EndSARS movement was not just about police brutality, but an outcry against years of corruption, injustice, and governance failure. She recalled that despite the clarity of citizens’ five demands—justice, compensation, police reform, oversight, and better welfare for officers—successive administrations have failed to act.

Baiyewu also linked last year’s #EndBadGovernance protests to the same unaddressed frustrations, condemning the government’s heavy-handed response that left at least 30 citizens dead and dozens detained, including minors.

The group warned that the continued misuse of laws such as the Cybercrime Act to stifle free speech undermines democracy and sends “a dangerous message that freedom of expression exists only on paper.”

Global Rights restated four key demands:
Accountability — Prosecution of those who ordered and carried out the Lekki shootings.
Reform — Full implementation of judicial panel recommendations and comprehensive police reform.

Respect for Rights — Training of security agents to manage protests in line with democratic principles and Civic Protection — An end to the misuse of laws to silence dissent.

“No government enjoys criticism, but strong democracies use it as feedback,” Baiyewu said. “The right to protest is not a privilege — it is a democratic safeguard against tyranny.”

“As Nigeria marks the fifth anniversary of the Lekki Toll Gate tragedy, we insist that until justice is served, the promise of democracy will remain unfulfilled.” (NAN)