Nigerian Soldiers Open Fire On Protesters

Nigerian soldiers have opened fire on protestors that were gathered at a protest site in Lagos. According to witnesses, the shooting took place at 7pm (18:00 GMT) while hundreds of people where gathered at the site, that has been the epicenter of the widespread rallies against police brutality in Nigeria.

Nigeria’s anti-police brutality protests went global through the social media platform Twitter by the use of hashtags such as #EndSARS, which trended the most. ‘SARS,’ an acronym for the Special Anti-Robbery Squad, had its officers over the years accused of robbing, attacking, and even killing people.

The unrest began when protesters called for the SARS to be disbanded.

President Muhammadu Buhari responded by dissolving the unit on October 11, and a new police unit, Special Weapons and Tactics SWAT, will replace it and will be trained by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). But the demonstrator called for more changes in the armed forces as well as reforms on how the country is run, as they say the government has failed to deliver past promises.

Babajide Sanwo-Olu the State Governor of Lagos stated that criminals have hijacked the protests “to unleash mayhem.”

As a result, state officials imposed a 24-hour curfew on the millions of people who live in Lagos as an attempt to end the 2 weeks of marches against police brutality. Witnesses that were gathered among the hundreds of protesters recalled pickup trucks arriving shortly after nightfall, followed by soldiers firing tear gas then bullets towards the crowd.

Though it was uncertain how many people were initially shot, security officer Alfred Ononugbo told Reuters he “saw the bullet hit one or two persons.” An Instagram live by DJ Switch, a popular disc jockey, showed protesters removing a bullet from someone’s wound, while gun-fire and sirens audible in the background.

Gboyega Akosile, a spokesperson for the Lagos state governor came to twitter, and said that state authorities had already ordered the incident to be investigated.

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