Global activists and celebrities on Thursday deplored the Federal Government over a violent crackdown on peaceful #EndSARS protesters demonstrating against police brutality last October.
The 60 activists, in an open letter addressed to President Muhammadu Buhari, released in Lagos to coincide with the International Human Rights Day, condemned the Nigerian government for “unwarranted force against its own unarmed citizens.”
The activists, who wrote under the auspices of Diaspora Rising, an advocacy body formed to strengthen “bonds among members of the global Black family”, demanded the release of jailed protesters as well as the prosecution of security operatives responsible for shooting civilians in Lagos.
They also enjoined the government to lift a ban on public demonstrations.
Martin Luther King Jr’s daughter, Bernice King; US activist, Opal Tometi; actors Danny Glover and Kerry Washington, Swedish teenage eco-warrior, Greta Thunberg; singer Alicia Keys, civil rights campaigner Angela Davis, US congresswoman Ilhan Omar, and Nigerian-American rapper, Jidenna, were among the signatories of the open letter to Buhari.
Tometi, a co-founder of the Black Lives Matter movement in the US and founder of Diaspora Rising, said Nigeria’s response to the protests was “very shameful”.
“Instead of showing up alongside (the people), the government went to suppress them, went to squelch the protest, and stamp it out,” she said.
According to Amnesty International, no fewer than 10 people were shot and killed by security forces during a protest at Lekki Toll gate, the epicentre of the demonstrations, in Lagos on October 20.
But the military has denied shooting live rounds, insisting that soldiers only fired blanks at the crowds that had gathered in defiance of a curfew.
Nigerian authorities have said more than 100 people, including 43 security operatives, were killed nationwide following days of street protests.
Last month, Central Bank of Nigeria blocked the accounts of some #EndSARS campaigners while security forces have so far unlawfully detained some of the arrowheads of the protest.