The Federal Government has said that security agencies are ready to stop another version of the #EndSARS protests at Lekki Toll Gate in Lagos.
The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, who made the announcement, yesterday, said any protest to block the toll gate would not be tolerated.
According to the minister, protests are constitutionally allowed only in designated places but not toll gates.
The protesters planned to reconvene in the Lekki Toll Gate on Saturday for another protest.
The minister said, “However, any further resort to violence in the name of #EndSARS will not be tolerated this time.
“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.”
Mohammed warned those planning the protest to shelve it.
He said intelligence report indicated that some of those planners are not in Nigeria.
He added, “We therefore strongly warn those who are planning to re-occupy Lekki Toll Gate on Saturday to desist.
“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,” he added.
Meanwhile, the #OccupyLekkiTollgate organisers said they are undaunted by efforts by threats by security operatives and the government to stop the fresh protest.
According to the organisers, the cause of the planned protest is beyond the ruling of the Lagos State Judicial Panel probing alleged killings of #EndSARS protesters at the Lekki toll gate on October 20, 2020.
They noted that the ban on cryptocurrency accounts among other reasons triggered their action.
They gave the reasons in a press statement made available to our correspondent titled, ‘EndSARS Season 2; Why we will #OccupyLekkiTollGate on Saturday – Campaigners’, yesterday.
They added that not even a counter-protest under the aegis of #DefendLagos will stop them.
The statement read, “After committing genocide by killing scores of people who were peacefully protesting at Lekki Tollgate and other parts of Lagos, Governor Sanwo-Olu and other oppressors want to spit on the dead and dance on the blood of the innocent by reopening the yahoo gate to be collecting their blood money as again.
“We say NO! We are undaunted! We will be occupying Lekki Tollgate again starting from Saturday February 13. We urge all well-meaning Nigerians to storm back all the barricades as our rulers have shown that they can never change. Since the #EndSARS, they are yet to effect any of the promises. Police brutality is still raging and SARS is still operating.
“Despite overwhelming and highly compelling evidence showing how several protesters were shot by the military, no single military personnel has been brought to book.
“Deaths have been established and many victims of the Lekki shootings have surfaced, yet neither the victims nor families of our deceased colleagues have got justice.
“After close to five months of sitting, the judicial panel meant to inquire into the Lekki massacre has refused to deliver justice to victims of the massacre most of whom have either lost their limbs due to gun wounds or have become deceased.
“Government has refused to provide employment for young people, yet they went ahead to ban the most promising source of income of young people; cryptocurrency.”
“Nigerians are extremely poorer and yet the cost of food is on the high side with increased cost of electricity that only produces darkness. Petrol price is being increased as marketers want it at #190 per litre.
“Nigerians are no longer secured in any part of the country; when they are not being harassed or extrajudicially murdered by police, they are being kidnapped, maimed, and killed by bandits.
“Today, the life of cows has become more valuable than those of Nigerians even as our streets and communities have fallen to the rule of kidnappers and bandits. The Nigerian government now negotiates and enriches terrorists and bandits while chasing after, arresting, shooting and killing protesters.
“It is to this end that we call on you all to come out enmasse to demand not just justice for victims and fallen heroes of the October 20 killings but that all involved in this heinous criminality be brought to book. Come out to demand the right to life and to exist in a country that respects our rights as citizens, abhors police brutality/extrajudicial killings, provides us with security, decent jobs with good wages and other such socio-economic rights that come with being a citizen.”