Lagos State Police Command said on Thursday that participants of the EndSARS memorial arrested by its operatives at Lekki tollgate had been released.
Police were said to have earlier on Thursday tear-gassed Nigerian youths at Lekki toll-gate, who gathered for a memorial of their colleagues killed on October 20, 2020, by security operatives, at the Lekki toll-gate.
They murdered youths were conducting a peaceful protest to demand for an end of a then police unit known as SARS, police brutality and extra-judicial killings, when they were killed two years ago.
On why the police arrested those participating in the memorial, Police Public Relations Officer, Benjamin Hundeyin, in an interview with Channels Television explained that operatives only arrested a few troublemakers who were kept in their custody on the spot but were later released when normalcy returned.
“A few troublemakers were identified and apprehended and kept in our custody right there on the spot, but a few minutes later when normalcy returned, they were all released, so it was part of our efforts to ensure there is no breakdown of law and order,” Hundeyin said.
According to him, officers were at the scene of the event to provide security and ensure that the procession went fine, and only reacted when some people tried to cause obstruction to the free flow of traffic.
The PPRO said, “Some people came out to have a peaceful procession across the tollgate and our officers were on ground to ensure that everything is fine. They provided the much-needed security, but some minutes into this, a few of those people decided to stop at the tollgate some were bringing a coffin to the station at the tollgate, and some wanted to mount the toll plaza.
They were increasing in number and started to derail the traffic and we had to disperse them with the use of teargas, normalcy returned and nobody was arrested and everything is okay right now, that is the report I got.”
On why the EndSARS memorial participants were tear-gassed, the Lagos police spokesperson claimed they had to deploy teargas when a few of the participants decided to stay back at the tollgate.
“You would remember that the last time there was a peaceful procession across that tollgate, not one teargas canister was fired because people did not stop, they just went across and passed in procession, but this time around they started that way and there was no teargas, the teargas was used to disperse people that decided to stay at the tollgate and cause some sort of obstruction on the free flow of traffic, and when the moment they were dispersed nothing was fired again, nobody was harassed, nobody was intimidated, we just ensured that there was free flow of traffic in that axis,” Hundeyin explained.