A Nigerian legal practitioner has dragged President Muhammadu Buhari, Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Tukur Buratai, and 10 others to Federal High Court in Lagos for them to “immediately” pay N10 billion to victims of the October 20 shootings at the Lekki toll gate in Lagos.
Olukoya Ogungbeje also asked the court to order “the immediate prosecution of all culpable security agents and persons directly or indirectly involved in the shooting and killing of unarmed, defenceless and peaceful protesters/victims of the #ENDSARS peaceful protests.”
Others 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.
The lawyer asked the court to declare that “the brutal shooting and killing and use of brute force against unarmed, defenceless and peaceful protesters engaging in the #ENDSARS protest was illegal, unlawful, undemocratic, oppressive, wicked and unconstitutional.”
He contended that the shooting was 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.”
No date has been fixed for hearing of the suit.
