There is an impending N10bn fundamental rights legal suit against President Mummadu Buhari, Chief of Army Staff, Lt Gen. Tukur Buratai and 10 others over the killings of unarmed EndSARS protesters, last Tuesday, at the Lekki tollgate.
Barely a week after the incident occurred, a human rights lawyer, Olukoya Ogungbeje is urging the Federal High Court in Lagos to declare that, “the brutal shooting, killing and use of brute force against unarmed, defenseless and peaceful protesters#Nigerian citizens engaging in #EndSARS peaceful protest on October 20, 2020, at the Lekki tollgate was illegal, unlawful, undemocratic, oppressive, wicked and unconstitutional.”
The Lawyer demands the court to compel the defendants to “immediately pay N10bn compensation to all the victims of the mindless shooting and brutal killing at Lekki tollgate.”
According to him, the unleashing of brutal force and shooting at the peaceful protesters were a violation of the protesters’ constitutional “right to life, fair hearing, right to peaceful assembly and association guaranteed under sections 33, 36, 38, 39 and 40 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999.”
Ogungbeje is urging the court to make an order “compelling the immediate prosecution of all the culpable security agents, soldiers and persons directly or indirectly or remotely involved in the dastardly shooting and killing of unarmed, defenceless and peaceful protesters/victims of the #ENDSARS peaceful protests at the Lekki Tollgate on the 20th of October 2020.”
Also joined as defendants in the suit are the Federal Government, the Nigerian Army, Chief of Defence Staff, Inspector-General of Police; Nigeria Police Force; State Security Service; Director-General, SSS; Lagos State Government; Attorney General of Lagos State; and the Attorney General of the Federation