Police fired teargas at the Lekki tollgate in Lagos on Tuesday, breaking up a #EndSARS memorial that drew two governorship candidates, journalists, activists, and residents to the site where unarmed protesters were shot six years ago.
Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) and Funso Doherty of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), both candidates in the 2027 Lagos governorship race, were among those caught in the dispersal. Media outlets were actively interviewing both politicians at the scene when teargas canisters tore through the air, sending everyone scrambling.
Police Move In Before Wreaths Could Be Laid
The memorial was organized by the Enough is Enough (EiE) movement to mark the sixth anniversary of the October 2020 #EndSARS protests. The gathering was a planned wreath-laying ceremony in honor of those who lost their lives during the nationwide demonstrations against police brutality, a movement that shook Nigeria and drew international attention to abuses by the Special Anti-Robbery Squad.
Police officers had assembled at the tollgate before the memorial even began. Without prior warning, they fired teargas canisters directly into the crowd, forcing participants to flee before a single wreath could be laid. Footage published live from the scene captured journalists, activists, rights advocates, and the two governorship candidates running in different directions as clouds of gas spread across the tollgate area.
After the crowd scattered, police fired additional shots that pushed protesters and journalists further from the scene. The teargas deployment drew immediate condemnation from civil society observers who were monitoring the event. Details on whether any arrests were made at Tuesday’s gathering were not immediately available.
Sowore Demands Prosecution of Lekki Shooters
Omoyele Sowore, presidential candidate of the African Action Congress (AAC), was also present at the gathering. On the protest’s sixth anniversary, Sowore demanded the identification, arrest, and prosecution of those responsible for the October 2020 Lekki tollgate shootings, questioning why victims are still waiting for justice six years on.
Activists who managed to remain in the area after the teargas vowed to continue the push for justice and police reform that first drove young Nigerians into the streets in 2020. Several of them told reporters at the scene that the police response only reinforced the argument that nothing has fundamentally changed since the protests.
A Pattern That Repeats Every October 20
The scenes on Tuesday were not new. In the years since the 2020 shooting, police have consistently mounted checkpoints and barricades at the Lekki tollgate ahead of each anniversary, working to prevent commemorations and tributes to the dead. Tuesday marked the sixth consecutive year that security operatives moved to shut down remembrance activities at the same spot and the sixth year that families and advocates left without completing a memorial.
The original #EndSARS protests erupted in October 2020 when young Nigerians took to streets across the country to demand an end to police brutality, particularly abuses carried out by the now-disbanded Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS). The unit had been accused for years of extortion, torture, and extrajudicial killings. The Lekki tollgate became the defining image of that movement after soldiers opened fire on unarmed protesters there on the night of October 20, 2020.
The Lagos State Judicial Panel of Inquiry, which investigated the incident, found that people had been shot, injured, and killed. The state government later rejected key parts of the panel’s findings, including aspects of its conclusions on casualties. The federal government also set up a separate inquiry. No prosecutions have followed in the six years since either process concluded.
The incident on Tuesday renewed sharp questions about the right to peaceful assembly in Nigeria. Rights advocates have long argued that police reforms introduced after the 2020 protests have not gone far enough to address the underlying abuses that first brought demonstrators to the streets. Tuesday’s crackdown at the same tollgate, on the same date, gave those arguments fresh force.
Channels Television reported that tension at the tollgate subsided after the crowd was dispersed, and the area was later cleared. No official statement from the Lagos State Police Command had been issued at the time of this report.
The 2027 Lagos governorship election, in which both Rhodes-Vivour and Doherty are competing, adds a pointed political dimension to their presence at Tuesday’s memorial. Both candidates were on the ground, in the gas, and on camera when police moved in. Rhodes-Vivour, who also ran in the 2023 Lagos governorship election under the Labour Party and finished second, has been a consistent voice on police accountability since the 2020 protests.
