Nobel laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka has said the Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, did not invite the army to shoot at End SARS protesters in Lekki on Tuesday, October 20.
Speaking in a statement on Wednesday, October 21, he said:
“It is absolutely essential to let this government know that the Army has now replaced SARS in the demonic album of the protesters.
My enquiry so far indicates that the Lagos governor did not invite in the Army, did not complain of a ‘breakdown in law and order’. Nevertheless the Centre has chosen to act in an authoritarian manner and has inflicted a near incurable wound on the community psyche.
At that earlier mention Lagos sector, Lekki, where most of the affirmative action gatherings had taken place, soldiers opened fire on unarmed demonstrators, killing and wounding a yet undetermined number. One such extra-judicial killing has drenched the Nigerian flag in the blood of innocents – and not symbolically.
The video has, in accustomed parlance, ‘gone viral’. I have spoken by phone to eye-witnesses. One, a noted public figure has shared his first hand testimony on television. The government should cease to insult this nation with petulant denials.”