Nigeria’s victims of #EndSARS protest violence await justice five years on

Lagos and Ogbomoso, Nigeria — Agbeze Ifeanyi Matthew huddled on the ground in fear, thinking his city had become a battlefield as a barrage of army gunfire rang out around him.

Beside him that night, hundreds of other young protesters were gathered at the Lekki tollgate in Nigeria’s economic capital, Lagos, waving green and white national flags and singing the national anthem.

The crowd tried to lay low, but a few minutes later, Matthew felt something hit his chest followed by a stream of warm liquid. When he looked down, he saw that he had been shot – the bullet entering his chest before exiting through his back.

Matthew stood up and tried to run to safety, but stumbled, fell, and passed out. His fellow protesters carried him to the nearby General Hospital, where he was treated before being transferred to another facility.

“I had lost a lot of blood because there were two openings. While I was being treated, I could hear the doctors and nurses talking, but I couldn’t react or open my eyes,” the 35-year-old content creator told Al Jazeera. “I thought I was going to die.”

The bullet fractured two ribs, but Matthew was one of the lucky ones to make it out alive. That October 20, 2020 night, there were 48 casualties, including a dozen people killed, after Nigeria’s military opened fire on unarmed demonstrators.

A man holds a Nigerian flag as he demonstrates on the street to protest against police brutality in Lagos, Nigeria, on Friday October 16, 2020 [Sunday Alamba/AP Photo]

#EndSARS protests

Five years ago, thousands of young Nigerians, including Matthew, participated in the nationwide #EndSARS protests – a two-week long demonstration against the rogue police unit, the Special Anti-Robbery Squad, or SARS, which stood accused of a slew of crimes including harassment, rape, profiling, extortion, and robbery.

One of the reasons Matthew – who usually had dreadlocked, red- and gold-dyed hair – joined the demonstrations was because he says he was regularly profiled and harassed by SARS officers on his commutes in Lagos. Once, they even told him they could shoot him dead and there would be no repercussions, he recalled.

After years of complaints, and seeming impunity, demonstrators went out into the streets to demand the disbandment of the SARS unit, police reforms, and better governance from the country’s leaders.

But the peaceful protests were regularly met with violent responses from the security forces. At first, tear gas and water cannons were fired, then live rounds were used to disperse crowds across protest venues nationwide.

The day Matthew was shot was one of the most violent, and deadly, and is now known as the Lekki massacre. But five years later, despite the Lagos government promising justice for the victims and the establishment of panels of inquiry into the violence in different states, Nigerians say justice has not been served.

Anietie Ewang, a Nigeria researcher at Human Rights Watch, told Al Jazeera that the country moves on too quickly from events such as the #EndSARS protests, and this is reflective of the impunity within which Nigeria’s security forces operate.

“It is also reflective of the failure of our justice system,” she said. “I think the two are really connected. If you have a justice system that is unable to hold our security forces accountable or even hold other actors in government accountable, then we are going to keep on having this type of scenario.”

Matthew shows the wound where the bullet entered his body [Pelumi Salako/Al Jazeera]

Perpetual pain, frustration

The day after the Lekki shooting, Matthew remained in hospital being treated.

His siblings visited him, and some of the protest organisers also provided food and hygiene supplies such as towels and tissue paper, which he said helped his stay.

“While at the hospital, I saw some of the other people brought in from the protest site. Some of them died while receiving treatment. I think it is a miracle I am alive,” he said.

The day after the shooting, the governor of Lagos, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, also visited the protesters’ ward in the hospital and in a statement said the order to shoot them came from “forces beyond our direct control”. He promised the state would pay for victims’ hospital bills. Matthew said he did not have to pay for his hospital expenses.

But after he was discharged, he struggled to recover, so some people in the protest movement raised money for him to get an X-ray. That’s when he discovered that his two injured ribs were colliding, which continues to be a major source of pain.

Today, he is yet to get the surgery he needs, because he cannot afford it. He remains in perpetual pain but also frustration, he says, because justice has not been served, no one has been charged in court, and neither the military nor the government has taken responsibility.

Different states set up panels of inquiry into compensation for victims of SARS-related abuses as well as security forces’ violations during the protests. Following the Lagos State Judicial Panel of Inquiry, the state has paid at least 410 million naira ($279,000) in compensation to 70 victims and families of victims, while other states have also made payments.

Temitope Ajayi, senior special assistant to the president on media and publicity, said the federal government had no role in the setup for seeking justice and accountability for victims.

“The states set up an investigative panel, and I think Lagos state was the epicentre [of the protests], and they did what they were supposed to do,” he said.

Al Jazeera attempted to contact the Lagos state government spokesperson and Lagos police by phone, but did not receive a response.

Jimoh Atanda’s 21-year-old son Jimoh Isiaka was the first demonstrator who died in the crackdown on the 2020 protests [Pelumi Salako/Al Jazeera]

No justice for the victims

Matthew’s ordeal is just one of many across Nigeria.

In Ogbomoso, Oyo state, 222km (138 miles) away from Lagos, the family of 21-year-old Jimoh Isiaka – the first person who died in the 2020 nationwide protests – lives in anguish.

Jimoh Atanda continues to relive the day his son was shot dead.

Atanda, a bus driver, was returning from a trip delivering dried fish in southwestern Nigeria, when neighbours called to tell him that his son had been shot. By the time he got to the site of the shooting, Jimoh had been rushed to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

“I didn’t know what to do,” Atanda told Al Jazeera. “I was confused and just drove down to the hospital where he was taken. No one should experience the loss of their child.”

Days later, members of parliament and the Oyo state governor visited the family and assured them that there would be compensation and justice. However, neither not materialised, Atanda says.

Over a period of four months, he attended a series of panels of inquiry into what happened at the protests. But none of the promises made have been fulfilled half a decade later – the policemen who killed his son still roam free, and the family did not receive any money, Atanda said.

Al Jazeera attempted to contact the Oyo state government spokesperson by phone about compensation and efforts to secure justice, but was unable to reach them.

“What we see is a lot of lip service that speaks to such efforts at the beginning where there is a lot of clamouring and push against the authorities but nothing after that initial period,” HRW’s Ewang said.

Atanda is still grappling with the death of his son, but says his wife is faring worse than him. She has been in and out of the hospital with health issues since Jimoh died, and things are usually worse in October, the month he was killed, when her grief becomes heightened.

Their burden is only slightly eased when they see Jimoh’s child.

“Because he had a child, we are a little bit consoled. It is unbearable. One must just accept in their mind that God has done his will,” Atanda said.

When asked what he would like from the government, he said, “there is nothing they can do for us that will be equivalent to our dead son”. But, he added, “we want them to do what is right.”

Justice for the victims has been obstructed due to the “systemic failure of state institutions” to act with integrity, according to Adewunmi Emoruwa, the global policy lead at Abuja-based public strategy firm Gatefield.

“At its core, #EndSARS was a call for governance rooted in accountability and respect for human dignity,” he said. “The violent response and the sustained silence that followed exposed deep institutional weaknesses: a culture of impunity, a fragile rule of law, and a state-citizen relationship built on distrust.”

A protester participates in a demonstration against SARS on October 18, 2020 [Sunday Alamba/AP Photo]

Difficult to accept loss

After the protests ended, the government tried to deny the October 20 Lekki shooting.

Lai Mohammed, then minister of information and culture, called it a “phantom massacre” and said the military did not shoot at protesters. Before the shooting, nearby CCTVs were disabled. The morning after, waste trucks with brushes were deployed to clean away the blood and bullet shells.

Still, there was overwhelming undeniable evidence: the shooting was livestreamed on Instagram by Obianuju Udeh, a popular disc jockey known as DJ Switch. Later on, a panel of inquiry found the army culpable in the shooting.

The Lagos state government also tried to secretly bury 103 people killed during the course of the protests in different parts of Lagos before pressure by activists and civil right groups forced them to stop.

HRW’s Ewang said it is difficult for families of victims to accept loss or continue knocking endlessly on doors until justice is served.

“It is pertinent that we see this through, and it shouldn’t just be on them. It should also be on the larger society to keep on discussing and pushing for this accountability to happen,” she said.

The #EndSARS protests were a moment of rare unity in a country often divided along ethnic, political and religious lines, many Nigerians say, and the youth galvanising for improved socioeconomic conditions, among their other demands, gave more people confidence to participate.

“It is the only time I have ever seen in this Nigeria that one tribe did not discriminate against the other; we were all in unity and I perceived something great was going to happen from there,” Matthew reflected.

However, the #EndSARS experience also left him disillusioned, especially as he was shot while waving Nigeria’s flag, contrary to popular belief that soldiers and the police respected the country’s symbol too much to shoot at it.

At the same time, many feel policing has not improved.

In the immediate aftermath of the protests, the government disbanded the SARS unit, and officers were reabsorbed into other units within the police force. But the disbandment did not put an end to police abuse, say Nigerians.

October trauma

Five years after the #EndSARS violence, policy analyst Emoruwa said the absence of justice reflects not only the failure to prosecute those responsible, but also the erosion of public faith in the state’s moral authority.

“True justice requires legal accountability, prosecuting the perpetrators. It demands institutional reform, ensuring that security agencies are subject to civilian oversight,” he said.

“And it calls for collective truth-telling and acknowledgment because nations that refuse to confront their own violence cannot build credible futures.”

Meanwhile, in Ikorodu, a city northeast of Lagos, Matthew is still reeling from all he lost five years ago.

The day after the shooting at Lekki, while he lay in hospital, his septuagenarian father went into shock after hearing the news about his son, and died.

While still recovering from the shooting, Matthew lost his job at a gas company. He has not found full-time work since.

As another October comes around, Matthew fears he won’t be able to sleep well because it is a month when he is reminded of his trauma. All the while, he waits for justice that does not seem to come.

“I thank God for my life,” he said, “even though I am still in pain and have no money to go for the surgery.”