Lekki Tollgate: ECOWAS Court Rules Nigeria Violated Human Rights During #EndSARS Protest

The Respondent denied all claims made by the Applicants, declaring that the protesters unlawfully assembled at Lekki Toll Gate on October 20, 2020, beneath the guise of protesting in opposition to SARS.

The Community Court of Justice of the Financial Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has dominated that the Federal Republic of Nigeria violated the human rights of Obianuju Catherine Udeh and two others.

The ruling, delivered on July 10, 2024, stumbled on Nigeria in breach of several articles of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights.

The courtroom stumbled on that Nigeria violated Articles 1, 4, 6, 9, 10, and 11, which pertain to the correct to existence, security of person, freedom of expression, meeting and association, prohibition of torture, the notify’s responsibility to analyze, and the correct to an effective clear up.

The Applicants, Obianuju Catherine Udeh, Perpetual Kamsi and Dabiraoluwa Adeyinka alleged that the violations happened at some level of the restful protests on the Lekki Toll Gate in Lagos Remark on October 20 and 21, 2020.

Justice Koroma Mohamed Sengu, the Identify Rapporteur, who delivered the judgment acknowledged the Court brushed off the allegation that the correct to existence as guaranteed beneath Article 4 of the ACPHR is violated.

Alternatively, he acknowledged that the Respondent must pay every Applicant Two Million Naira (N2 million) as compensation for violations of their security of person, prohibition of torture and merciless, inhuman, and degrading therapy, rights to freedom of expression, meeting, and association, responsibility to analyze human rights violations, and true to effective clear up.

Furthermore, the Respondent must adhere to its tasks beneath the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, investigate and prosecute its agents to blame for these violations, and document to the Court interior six months on the measures taken to place in force this judgment.

The Applicants alleged that at some level of the restful protests in opposition to the SARS Unit of the Nigerian Police Power at Lekki Toll Gate, Lagos Remark, on October 20 and 21, 2020, the Respondent committed several human rights violations. Caused by the alleged killing of Daniel Chibuike, the protests were centered at ending police harassment and brutality.

The First Applicant’s claims embody that the soldiers shot protesters, main to deaths and accidents, which she are living-streamed, attributable to this truth receiving threatening phone calls that compelled her into hiding and eventual asylum.

The 2d Applicant, to blame for protesters’ welfare, describes how soldiers began taking pictures after a energy sever, main to her hospitalisation attributable to police inch gasoline.

The Third Applicant recounted narrowly escaping being shot, looking out on the refusal of ambulance entry by soldiers, and later witnessing insufficient properly being facility be pleased victims.

She argued that she and her colleagues took over the victims’ care and he or she confronted ongoing threats and surveillance, believed to be by Respondent’s agents. The Applicants sought declaratory reliefs and compensation from the Court for these violations.

The Respondent denied all claims made by the Applicants, declaring that the protesters unlawfully assembled at Lekki Toll Gate on October 20, 2020, beneath the guise of protesting in opposition to SARS.

The Respondent furthermore maintained that its agents adopted strict concepts of engagement and did now not shoot or rupture protesters.

It argued that the First Applicant incited the crew by playing tune and the spend of her Instagram page to walk disaffection in opposition to law enforcement, who were concentrated on escapee people of Boko Haram and bandits.

Meanwhile, the Respondent contended that the 2d Applicant’s provision of logistics and welfare toughen indicated her toughen for the violent advise. It claimed that soldiers were expose to restore peace until the police arrived, denying any ruin inflicted on protesters and the refusal of ambulance access.

The Respondent furthermore denied that the Third Applicant’s presence used to be restful, declaring it used to be supposed to escalate violence. It argued that the therapy and care of the injured were managed by the Lagos Remark authorities and submits that the Applicants dangle now not equipped credible evidence to toughen their claims, or the reliefs sought.

In its judgment, the Court stumbled on there used to be no violation of the correct to existence as the Applicants filed their claims in vitam. Alternatively, the Court held that several articles of the ACHPR were breached by the Respondent, which occasioned fundamental breaches of human rights violation therein.

Furthermore, the Court declared that the Applicants were denied the correct to an effective clear up.

The Court ordered that the Respondent invent reparations to the Applicants for the violation of their fundamental human rights.

The people of the three-judge panel embody Honourable Justices Dupe Atoki, presiding and Ricardo Claúdio Monteiro Gonçalves.

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