Not all fights are conventional, and countries employ unconventional methods to quell protests, insurrections, or whatever they feel is not in their benefit.
Many still do not know that governments can sponsor violence to achieve a particular aim.
State-sponsored violence is very common as many state can sponsor violence against its citizens, as can be seen in the #EndSARS protests in Nigeria. Reasons, why a country can engage in state sponsored violence, can be strategic, expressive, or ideological. In most cases, major state actors like Presidents are the major initiators of the violence, who delegate the security agencies to execute them on their behalf. In some others, the security apparatuses plan and execute them on behalf of the major state actors.
Read Also: Why Nigerian Youths Shouldn’t Lose Their Lives Protesting
When Buhari’s government saw the determination of the Nigerian youths in the #EndSARS protests, they, first of all, analysed its resultant effect and weighed its implications and impact on power at the center and the political class. The only option for them was to to strategize and end it at all cost.
Their action can be said to be strategic as they knew from their analysis that it was largely peaceful and that it was so organized that nothing would have made the youths to cede any ground till they get all their demands, which the Federal Government was not going to grant.
The first measure the government took was to infiltrate the protest with thugs, so that it could be discredited immediately and as such any means employed to end it would be justified. This is the reason why we saw even the men of the Department of State Security otherwise known as DSS using government operational vehicles to convey hoodlums to the sites of the peaceful protests so they could disrupt them.
Also, same touts were seen in police vehicles being chauffeured to the protest grounds to go cause problems.
After successfully infiltrating and hijacking the peaceful protests by the state actors, it became the time to deploy the military to do the finishing touches. The plan was so meticulous that they systematically pulled off the cameras, switched off the lights, before opening fire on the protesters that gathered at the Lekki Toll Gate. To clean their traces, they had to take away corpses so that the dead can’t be traced to them.
The final step was to change the narratives by distorting facts of the killings to exonerate the President, and it was achieved by paying some of the youths among the protesters to discredit evidences.
To those doubting the killings of peaceful protesters and those demanding the families of the massacred youths come forth, you all should quit sounding ignorant, and start making some research because it could be you someday.
By
Odumodu Gbulagu
AFRICA DAILY NEWS, NEW YORK
