By Tosin Olatokunbo
Ahead of plan by EndSARS protesters to hold a protest at the Lekki Toll gate on Saturday February 13, President Muhammadu Buhari has directed the army and the police to come down hard on protesters to forestall any breakdown of law and order.
The order came after the protesters gave an indication that they were going on another protest following the decision of the Justice Doris Okuwobi-led Lagos Judicial Panel of Inquiry, to open the tollgate for Lagos Concession Company, LCC to continue to collect toll fees on the road.The protesters insist that the toll gate should remain shut until the panel concludes its investigations.
But the federal government, according to the Minister of Information, Culture and National Orientation, Lai Muhammed, has obtained intelligence report on plans by some hoodlums to hijack the protest to cause chaos. This will not be allowed, Mohammed said.
The minister said this on the heels of a similar comment by the minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami that the Buhari administration treated the October 20, 2020 EndSARS protest with kid gloves.
Mohammaed, spoke in Abuja, on Thursday warning that upon order from President Buhari ” The security agents are ready for any eventuality. A situation in which six soldiers and 37 policemen were murdered in cold blood by hoodlums will not repeat itself.
” The attack, looting and razing of 269 private and public property will not happen again. The killing of 57 civilians will not be re-enacted.. No government anywhere will allow a repeat of the kind of destruction, killing and maiming wrought by the hijackers of #EndSARS protests last year.
” After all, only one policeman – (plus four others) – was killed in the invasion of the US Capitol in January, yet the FBI has continued to hunt down and prosecute the perpetrators. No life is more important than the other.
” We know that many of those who have been loudest on social media in advertising the plan to reconvene in Lagos on Saturday are not even in Nigeria.They are elsewhere around the world fanning the embers of violence and inciting gullible people back home. No one should fall for their antics.”
